OAKLAND, CA — Urban Peace Movement’s Decarceration Campaign Coordinator spoke out at a Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission after the Alameda County District Attorney’s office announced a plan to sharply increase the number of youth who will be referred to the adult court system.
Cynthia Nunes called the policy change a “crisis” during her public comment to the commission, according to a news report in the East Bay Times.
According to the report, Alameda County’s new District Attorney, Ursula Jones Dixon, has sought to try six juveniles as adults. Only three juveniles were tried as adults from 2014- 2023, the report claimed.
“We know that this doesn’t keep our community safer. It actually is stripping our young people of access to the age-appropriate rehabilitation that they are entitled to, and we are subjecting them to more trauma,” Nunes said, according to the report. Read the full article here.
“We have two systems — for young people and for adults — for a reason. So I’m just trying to understand what the commission is going to do.”