Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gasc\u00f3n joined Assembly Member Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) today to unveil legislation that would stop strikes committed by minors from later being used against them in adult proceedings.<\/p>\n
Assembly Bill 1127 also would allow people to petition the court for resentencing if their prior juvenile adjudication was used to enhance an adult felony conviction.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we continue to institute criminal justice reform in California, we must work together to instill equity and fairness in the juvenile system,\u201d District Attorney Gasc\u00f3n said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill underscores the real purpose of the juvenile justice system: to rehabilitate young people. To use crimes committed while an adolescent\u2019s brain is still developing to punish them as adults just does not make sense,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we put our energy toward rehabilitating young people, we improve community safety by reducing recidivism. That\u2019s how this bill will help us reduce mass incarceration and end the disparate impact that juvenile strike laws have on people of color.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornians must lead in fighting mass incarceration and to do that, we must start with our youth,\u201d said Assembly Member Miguel Santiago, lead author of AB 1127. \u201cIn juvenile court, juvenile strikes are not treated the same as adult strikes for many reasons. However, when someone is convicted of a future adult strike, California counts juvenile strikes like prior adult strikes, leading to harsher punishments and longer sentences. We must reverse this backwards system so that we focus on rehabilitating, not incarcerating our communities, and so we can treat all Californians with fairness and dignity, especially people of color.\u201d<\/p>\n
District Attorney Gasc\u00f3n thanked Deputy District Attorneys Michael Mallano and Katharine Yaske for recommending this legislation and Alisa Blair, his Special Advisor on juvenile issues, and Special Assistant Deputy District Attorney Daniel Felizzatto, for their work on this bill. He also recognized Assembly Member Bill Quirk (D-Hayward), who co-authored the bill.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s current Three Strikes law permits specified felonies that are found true in a juvenile court proceeding to be alleged as a strike prior in a future adult criminal proceeding to enhance a defendant\u2019s potential length of incarceration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gasc\u00f3n joined Assembly Member Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) today to unveil legislation that would stop strikes committed by minors from later being used against them in adult proceedings. Assembly Bill 1127 also would allow people to petition the court for resentencing if their prior juvenile adjudication was used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5409,"featured_media":156238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1,37],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n