With the adjournment of the annual state legislative session, we thought we’d share with you some of the bills that made it to the governor’s desk. We would also like to focus on a significant change to juvenile justice in California. Even though state lawmakers had to contend with conflicts relating to COVID-19, some interesting…
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At the Law Offices of Katie Walsh, we’d like to share our deepest condolences to the families of the 74,188 Americans who have succumbed to COVID-19. We will continue to keep all the infected in the United States – some 1,232,470 – in our thoughts and prayers. While some headway has been made in containing…
Continue reading ›In the age of the Internet, the topic of electronic privacy comes up regularly in legal discussions. Smartphones are ubiquitous in today’s world; most adolescents and adults have one at all times. In recent years, legal experts have been debating the electronic privacy for criminal offenders. The question is whether or not the attorneys general…
Continue reading ›Neuroscientists say that the brain doesn’t fully mature until age 25, which makes you wonder why teenagers are considered adults at the age of 18. What’s more, in some cases, teens under 18 years of age are prosecuted as adults in the criminal justice system. Researchers have long understood that adolescents are impulsive and reckless;…
Continue reading ›On numerous occasions, we have covered Senate Bill 190: Ending Juvenile Administrative Fees (SB-190), a piece of legislation that abolished entire categories of monetary sanctions in the juvenile legal system and a subset of fees for young people in the adult legal system. Signed into law by former Governor Jerry Brown in 2017, the landmark…
Continue reading ›Senate Bill 1391 is in the news once again, which probably won’t come as a surprise to our readers. The law raised the age that juvenile offenders can be tried as adults from 14 to 16. We’ve been covering this legislation since last year, when former Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1391 into law. The…
Continue reading ›Abuse or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can significantly alter the course of a child’s life and lead to severe problems. Trauma of any kind can leave an indelible mark on a person’s psyche. With treatment and support for social services, children may adopt unhealthy behaviors due to a shortage of coping mechanisms. Many adults who…
Continue reading ›Coming into contact with the juvenile justice system can have a lasting impact on a person’s life. Once arrested and placed into a detention center, the likelihood of it occurring again exponentially increases. In most cases, young people who get into trouble with the law are better served by alternatives to incarceration. Reducing recidivism among…
Continue reading ›While it might be hard for some people to fathom elementary school students being suspended for not cooperating in class, it’s a common occurrence in California. Each year, thousands of kids are removed from the classroom for what is known as disruption and willful defiance. We have written about this subject on numerous occasions. On…
Continue reading ›In 2017, the Santa Barbara County Probation Department began an internal investigation and data mining project. The goal was to determine if there could be policy and practice reforms that might benefit at-risk youths and keep them out of the juvenile justice system, The Santa Maria Sun reports. A comparison of county data revealed that…
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