SACRAMENTO – Violent crime by young people in California is climbing, and in his final legislative session, Governor Newsom took a series of actions to make the problem worse. The Governor signed several bills into law, opposed by the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC), which will make it harder to detain serious and violent youthful offenders or keep them under probation supervision for sufficient time. These actions, particularly when taken in conjunction with bills Governor Newsom has signed or vetoed throughout his Administration, leave the system responsible for the state’s most dangerous young offenders without the tools to keep Californians safe and rehabilitate those who need it most.

The numbers:

• Violent felony arrests among youth: up nearly 60 percent since the state closed the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
• Juvenile homicide arrests: up more than 80 percent since 2019.
• Youth adjudicated for serious offenses, including murder and rape: up 120 percent in two years, from 1,459 to 3,216.

What Governor Newsom did this session:

• Signed SB 1009 (Becker), which ties the hands of courts in detaining serious and violent juvenile offenders, regardless of crime, requiring placement in our communities.
• Signed AB 1886 (Elwhary), which limits how long youthful offenders, regardless of crime and regardless of rehabilitative progress, can stay on probation.
• Signed a 2026–27 budget that shifts juvenile justice dollars away from counties without reducing their responsibility for the youth they must serve and again left unfunded probation’s requests for secure behavioral health beds for youth with severe psychiatric needs and dedicated funding for youth transferred from DJJ.

• Refused, again, to fund Proposition 36, the accountability and treatment measure California voters overwhelmingly approved, in both his January budget and May Revision.
• Proposed cuts to existing pretrial services and probation funding in his May Revision, even as probation’s caseloads grow more serious.

“We warned Governor Newsom this would happen. It happened,” said Karen Pank, Executive Director for CPOC. “This year, he had the bills on his desk and the budget in his hands to start fixing it. He has exacerbated the juvenile justice crisis and failed to make our communities safer. Every family in California deserves better than that.”

The young people in today’s system are older and more violent than the population the system was built to serve. Nearly 70 percent of youth committed to Secure Youth Treatment Facilities are there for murder, attempted murder, or aggravated assault. Nearly 80 percent are between 17 and 25 years old. Yet state law now caps juvenile probation terms at 12 months, even for serious and violent offenses. Youth are leaving supervision before rehabilitation is complete, and communities are left to deal with the consequences.

“This isn’t a mystery. California knows how to do this right, because we did it,” Pank added. “Between 2000 and 2019, juvenile felony arrest rates dropped 73 percent while nearly 90 percent of youth were safely served in their communities. That worked because judges and probation professionals had the time, discretion, and tools to do their jobs. Since 2020, the state has stripped those tools away.”

CPOC is calling on state leaders to restore professional judgment, give youth enough time to be rehabilitated, put victims and public safety on equal footing with the needs of young offenders, and rebuild the capacity the system lost.

“This was Governor Newsom’s last chance to get this right, and he didn’t just walk away from it; he doubled down on it – leaving those who live and work in communities across the state to deal with the fallout,” said Pank. “We hope the next Governor does better. Whoever takes office in January inherits a juvenile justice system at a breaking point, and California can’t afford to wait. Probation is ready to work with them on day one.”

For more information on California’s violent juvenile crime crisis, visit www.juvenilejusticeca.org.

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