Report finds troubled youth wrongly held

Report finds troubled youth wrongly held

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles),who represents Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Westlake Village, recently released a report finding that more than half of California’s juvenile detention facilities inappropriately incarcerate youth waiting for mental health treatment.

The report reveals that on an average night, more than 250 California youth are jailed because community treatment services are not available.

These youth are as young as eight years old; some have no charges of any kind pending against them and the estimated annual cost of inappropriate detention exceeds $10 million.

The report examines responses from administrators in 43 California juvenile detention facilities representing a response rate of 88 percent. Twenty-seven centers (63 percent of those surveyed) reported holding youth unnecessarily because community mental health services were not available.

The report finds that inappropriately held youth in California stay in detention for an average of 64 days, more than twice the average time spent by California youth as a whole and three times the average time spent by juvenile detainees nationally. About one in eight youth incarcerated inappropriately in the nation each night waits in a California facility.

See the complete report at: http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov.