California Governor Gavin Newsom recently approved a bill that expands the existing Youth Bill of Rights to ensure the safety and fair treatment of incarcerated youth in the state. The bill, known as Senate Bill 1353, was signed into law on July 18 and was authored by Democratic Senator Aisha Wahab. It passed unanimously in the Assembly in June and the Senate in July.
Senator Wahab emphasized the importance of addressing behavioral health alongside mental health in order to rehabilitate youth and prevent recidivism. The new law builds upon the existing guidelines of the Youth Bill of Rights by granting juveniles the right to receive behavioral health services, including prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of substance abuse disorders and life stressors and crises.
The expanded bill will provide incarcerated youth with access to therapists, mentors, counselors, and other behavioral treatments. Senator Wahab stated that many troubled youth discover they have a treatable behavior disorder during incarceration, and leaving these conditions untreated can contribute to further incarceration.
The Youth Bill of Rights, initially passed in 2022, guarantees specific rights for youth detained in any juvenile facility in California. Previously, these rights only applied to the Division of Juvenile Justice in the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which housed the state’s most serious youth offenders before its closure in 2023.
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