Selena Teji On the 58 Cooks in California’s Juvenile Justice Kitchen

Recently, in a public hearing, a San Francisco District Attorney stated her commitment to “work[ing] closely with criminal justice partners to ensure effective sentencing without reliance on incarceration.” This is an unusual and bold sentiment from a prosecutor’s office. In San Francisco County, are the winds changing? In light of an enormous fiscal deficit and state-run youth prisons failing to provide even basic care to their wards, it is essential that California sheds its reliance on incarceration and get creative with community-based alternatives. By embracing this approach, San Francisco’s District Attorney’s Office is boldly stepping out of the institutional mold and breaking barriers to criminal justice reform. This is good news for the residents of San Francisco County, but what about the other 57 counties in this, the nation’s most populous state?