Aftercare as Afterthought: Reentry and the California Youth Authority

Each year, more than 2,000 youthful offenders are released from the California Youth Authority (CYA). The challenge for the State of California is to preserve public safety and assist youthful offenders to make a positive transition to a productive life. Because every youthful offender will be released back to society, the costs of failure are staggering, and it is clearly in the best interest of our communities to rehabilitate this population. Given the extraordinary number of other urgent priorities, this public-safety challenge must be met with as much cost-efficiency as possible. Limited resources should be targeted at prevention and intervention programs with strong track records in preventing re-offense. Solutions do exist, and successful programs can become part of a statewide juvenile justice improvement strategy.

This report is the first in a series of reports of OSI grantee Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice's "Next Steps: The California Ex-Offender Community Reentry Project" to address solutions to aftercare and reintegration needs of California's parolee population.