Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color, Friday, February 27, 2026
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Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color California State Assembly
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 3
We are going to be focused on hope and healing right now certainly, but also the other part of this, this very challenging time is something that we need to place right front and center of the work that we do right now. I've been honored and privileged to be able to work with many of the organizations and advocacy groups in this room who have fought so tirelessly to make sure particularly that our boys and men of color are not trapped inside our criminal legal system. And we're very thankful to have passed AB thirteen seventy six with Governor Newsom's signature to be able to end endless probation. That was hard work that happened over a decade by many, many advocacy organizations in this room. And our work is just still needing to be done.
I think under the leadership of Assembly Member Brian with two bills, AB sixteen forty six and AB sixteen forty seven, of which I was proudly allowed to become a co author on, earlier today after visiting with, the young men, inside our juvenile institution. Very excited to be able to support that work. We are in a very rare moment where we have the tension in the State of California of recognizing that there is so much progress that needs to be made and dealing with the federal government continues to decide to dehumanize people, particularly boys and men of color. So I'm thankful that California gets to lead yet again to ensure that we can raise right our boys and turn them into the powerful young men that we know that they are and make sure that we never forget that at the end of the day, we need to focus and center humanity and our criminal legal system should, hold that humanity and dignity for every person that has to interact with that system. And so, we'll get to the bottom of it by hearing from some amazing individuals for justice today.
I'm very thankful to be able to participate. Thank you, Chair.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Chair for your incredible leadership not just with this select committee but everything that you do every day advocating in our state capital on behalf of all in our community but in particular boys and men of color throughout this state. We know that there's always been a heavy weight on boys and men of color by this society, by this country, by this government. When I worked as a public defender back in the 90s and early 2000s, I don't think I could have imagined the incredible amount of positive progress that has been made since that time because of so many people in this room and so many people not in this room that have been advocates and allies and yet it also yet it seems as if with all these steps forward we've taken there's folks that are still wanting to push us back. But we know that the work must continue.
I'm very grateful to so many in this room, so many organizations in this room that have been supportive of the Racial Justice Act and the subsequent legislation that continues to push its intention forward. And I'm also looking forward to the incredible panels and the speakers today so that we can figure out what we need to do to against this pendulum trying to swing back to make sure that we continue continue to fight for one another and fight for justice. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you, colleagues, for your comments. The format today will be after, two and a half minutes for each panelist, a little bit of flexibility depending on where you are, your points, and then questions and feedback from the committee and then we'll move on to subsequent panels. With the first panel, we have, Deanna Pittman with the Young Women's Freedom Center. Joseph Williams, students deserve. Derek Steele from the Social Justice Learning Institute.
Melinda Cacani from the California Youth Justice Project, and my twin, Justin Marks from the Youth Justice Coalition. And before we start with miss Pittman, I also for my colleagues who are not from Los Angeles, this spot you're standing in sitting in is special. It wasn't chosen on accident, and it wasn't always special. It was a site of harm. This is a former, youth courthouse, where there are still cells around the corner in this space and it was taken over by the young people of Los Angeles and transformed into a place of healing and repair and organizing.
So I thought it was only fitting that we do our first select committee hearing here. And with that we'll start with Ms. Pittman in two and a half minutes.
Speaker 5
Okay. Hello and thank you for inviting me to speak on this panel. First, I really just want to acknowledge and say that I'm honored to be able to be on this panel with people who I consider to be giants. My name is Deanna Pittman and I use sheher pronouns and I The incarceration of boys and men of color is an issue that hits close to home for me. As a child, my father was in and out of LA County jails and in and out of our state prisons.
I know firsthand the heartbreak that comes with having to see the strongest man in your family, in your life be held down by abusive and carceral institutions. Today, I serve as the program manager of youth leadership and justice at the Young Women's Freedom Center in Los Angeles. And we are leading the campaign to end the incarceration of girls, gender expansive youth, and trans youth in LA. We've got a rich history of doing this work in the Bay Area but in 2020, we brought this model to LA and since then, we've launched youth internships, fellowships, consistent weekly programming. We do one on one mentorship and my favorite part is that we get to create advocacy opportunities for youth to to take their experiences to the state and to the county level to advocate for themselves.
In 2023, we kicked off the liberation fund. This is a coalition of men, of women, of girls, of boys, of transgender folks, of elders and allies who have all declared that we have no interest in rehabilitating or working with probation. Probation and incarceration has done harm. These are abusive systems that have failed us and we're not waiting any longer. Youth justice reimagined is alive and well today.
Must say that because look at all of the people in the room today. What we're focused on is building power, creating, and uplifting our own solutions. LA operates the largest youth detention system in this country and we're declaring that if we can free the 50 girls that are locked up in LA right now, then we can work with the boys, then we can do this with youth in other counties and throughout the country. Thank you.
Speaker 6
I don't know why y'all had to put me after Deanna. Lord. What's up, y'all? Thank you, assembly member Brian. Thank you to the committee.
Grateful to be here. My name is Joseph Williams. I'm the executive director of Students Deserve. Students Deserve works in Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the country, working to support young people to fight against the school to prison pipeline, to fight against school discipline policies that push young people out of schools, and into these systems of incarceration and oppression and abuse. I'm very grateful and lucky to say that, like some of the people you all might have heard from already, I'm a formerly incarcerated young person who was experiencing homelessness, who was pushed into group homes, pushed out of schools repeatedly, and ended up in cells and in cages as a young person.
First time I was arrested maybe ten, first time I was actually in a juvenile detention center I was 13 years old. I was lucky in that I had a rich community of folks who were pouring into me even as I was being incarcerated and re incarcerated every time I violated probation for something that happened happened at school. But most of the people, most of the boys and young men that I was locked up with did not have those systems of support, when they went home or when they went to school. There was too often a focus on the surveillance and the criminalization of young people and not on the support that they needed, on actually helping to meet the the needs, right, and the root causes, address the root causes of what caused young people to to act out or where our systems have failed young people. Here in Los Angeles, there has been a history of folks organizing against the criminalization, incarceration, and push out of young people.
We know that so often, young people's interactions with the criminal justice system, especially for boys and men of color, happen in schools, first in schools, right, through being expelled, suspended, arrested by school police, pushed out for willful defiance and other things. Right? And so there's a long history, of folks in Los Angeles organizing to say, we've gotta end the criminalization and push out of boys and of all of our students, and and provide schools that actually support and help meet the needs of the young people that they're serving. LAUSD is 90% students of color, 85% free and reduced lunch. It is an entirely, right, poor, low income, working class district, of kids of color who have, again, experienced decades, and our families have experienced decades of underinvestment, over policing, surveillance, criminalization, incarceration.
So over the past decade, folks have been able to make really transformative policy changes and and victories that have impacted hundreds of thousands of young people and their families in LAUSD. I mentioned already, shout out to CADRE and and the Brothers and Sons selves coalition who fought to end wolf of defiance. Shout out to the Labor Community Strategy Center who fought to end, truancy tickets, where young people were being criminalized for missing school or being late to school. Shout out to so many folks, who pushed for, a through g g requirements, who pushed for more resources for young people. And in 2020, students deserve Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and the Brothers Sun Cells Coalition pulled together, the Police Free LAUSD Coalition, which won a $25,000,000 divestment from the school police department.
And let me just say, right, in a in a in a city, in a county, in a state that spends so much on incarceration and policing, LAUSD also has its own police department. Mhmm. Right? That they still to this day are spending over $70,000,000 of education dollars a year on a school police department instead of using those resources to actually meet young people's needs. What we've been able to win in LAUSD since 2020, again, a $25,000,000 divestment from the school police department to create the black student achievement plan.
The black student achievement plan brings restorative justice teachers, psychiatric social workers, academic and career counselors, funding for community based safety, funding for mentorships and community partnerships, funding for HBCU tours and college access, funding for so many things, African American studies courses, ethnic studies courses, electives, where we have literally taken money that was used to criminalize and arrest and abuse and pepper spray and incarcerate young people and put that into positive resources for young people in the second largest school district in the country. We know now that the district is being sued, right, for equitable funding policies and equitable policies that have fought again since the desegregation of public schools to actually right some of the wrongs that this country has enacted. Right? And those policy victories including BSAP are under direct attack because folks have seen how powerful our movement is, how powerful our communities are, and the transformative changes that have come about since some of these changes have been acted. Shout out to to Castle Redman I saw earlier.
They they wrote an article, I think, that came out, last week, that named, right, that last year LA had the lowest number of murders that it's had since 1966 or 1967, at the same time as we're seeing the highest levels of, academic achievement, right, especially for black students, especially for boys and men of color in our schools. Now we know that the needle is nowhere near moved as far as it needs to. Right? And the resources that young people are still getting, or still lacking, right, are so massive. And we have shown, we have proven with the work in Los Angeles that when you invest in meeting the needs of young people, when you invest in support systems and resources and culturally affirming curriculum in restorative and transformative justice, that we can actually transform outcomes for our young people and for the broader community.
So grateful to continue to be with the, Police Free LAUSD coalition pushing for LA to continue to divest from policing and incarcerating young people and invest in the kind of resources that we need, including winning last year $5,000,000 for Dream Centers to support immigrant students and families who are experiencing heightened levels of criminalization, surveillance, and abuse right now, as well as $2,000,000 for LGBTQ plus affirming supports for young young people, queer and trans young people who are also facing attacks in our schools. And we would like to invite y'all tomorrow is actually the five year anniversary of the Black Student Achievement Plan. If y'all are still around in LA, assembly members, but also to the whole crowd, we'll be at, the Crenshaw Mall from 11AM to 4PM celebrating the five year anniversary of the Black Student Achievement Plan, where we're gonna be hearing from young people who went to schools before BSAP, where black students, black boys in particular, were being heavily policed, heavily criminalized, criminalized, pushed out of schools with zero tolerance policies, young people's experiences over the last five years with cops off campus, with a ban on pepper spray, with more counselors, with more positive adults on their campuses.
So we're gonna be celebrating tomorrow and also affirming and reaffirming our commitment, to continue this work even under the face of attacks. So we appreciate y'all being here for this hearing, and we hope, that we can continue to push forward some of the transformative victories that we've been able to build and win here in Los Angeles and around California. Thank you.
Speaker 1
So that was a solid ten minutes. But but Joseph's been my brother for a long time and took us right down memory lane. But also so much incredible work is happening. So, I'm actually unlikely to cut any of you off at any point. Just want you to be mindful of yourself because we have a limited amount of time with our assembly college.
We have flights to get back north, and we wanna make sure we hear from all the youth too. But that was incredibly powerful and important. And with that, wanna hear from you, mister Steele.
Speaker 7
I was about to say I I I would have yielded my time for everything that my brother was saying. And he is completely spot on. My name is Derek Steele. I am the Executive Director of the Social Justice Learning Institute out of Inglewood, California. Our mission is to improve the overall health, education and well-being of youth and communities of color.
We do that by empowering them to be able to enact the change they want to see. Our flagship work is in education, working starting with, boys and men of color, particularly, black boys. Our flagship program, Urban Scholars, started off as a Black Male Youth Academy out of Morningside High School, working to make sure that there is community built amongst the young people that we work within the schools. This is a credit bearing class that they actually take where they're learning the fundamentals of civic engagement. But like I said, figuring out how they can use education as a through way for towards success for their own towards success for their own livelihood, but also thinking about how they can actually enact change in their community at the same time.
And so what Joseph was actually saying and a very important aspect that goes along with this, there are several different organizations that work, on and with, on behalf of and with young people, that are helping to empower them in certain in many different ways. And, SJLI alone is a part of almost 30 different coalitions and collaboratives all throughout LA County and through the State of California, more than half of them being dedicated towards the work that is happening on behalf of young people and several of them on the behalf of boys and men of color. The Brothers in Sales Coalition, that Joseph was talking about is one of the coalitions that we are a part of. And when you think about the, it's not just making sure that we can create the atmosphere and the, correct the systems, to make sure that young people can thrive. It's also making sure that they have the opportunity to be at the table and to speak on behalf of what they want to see in the future, the future that they're going to inherit on their own.
Right? I I think when you when you come across policies like Prop 47, right, that ten years ago was, brought to bear, like, the work that many of our young people did during that time frame to help make sure that that that type of policy gets ushered in, there are now, young people and families that are that have ripped the benefits of it ten years later. Right? When you think about the school the police free schools work, you know, there are young people who are there today that we're still working with now that reap the benefits of the work that young people have done on behalf of themselves and their peers and their future peers as well, right? So, I think it's really critical to make sure that anytime we have these spaces and I'm really grateful that it's not just the adults who get the opportunity to speak today, it's it's actually the young people being able to speak upon the for themselves to be able to show you and tell you what they want to see in the world.
You know, the I can you know, when you think about things like, Measure J and and how those things How that got passed. When you think about the work that came before it that actually establishes You know, that establishes the opportunity for the Department of Youth Development in in, LA County even becoming about, That work comes through with young people coming together and Youth Reimagine in a report that comes out of that. The ATI report, young people were thoroughly involved in that work as well. So, I'm giving you all these different examples of things to kind of look at to to be able to hear the voice of the young people. They're not just outside and at rallies, and they are at the rallies, don't don't get me wrong.
Like, they are they're outside, for real, and and not afraid unafraid to be able to say how they feel about what they want to see, but they are also astute enough and have the have the information that they need to be able to help develop policy. You know, shout out to the Alliance of Boys and Men of Color and the and the work that they do in making sure that there is place and space for us to be able to come and speak to elected officials every single year around the issues, and organizing around, the policies that we wanna see that help to get us closer and closer to a world where young people can live whole free, thriving lives. But I I guess the point I wanna, like, really underscore I can talk about the work, can talk about what SJLI does and how we help to advance it. But it really comes down to the, at least from our organization, the 4,000 plus young people who didn't just come through the the work at SJLI, but but many of them also being in the ranks of leaders who have helped to advocate for change on on the school district level, on the county level, on the city level, and even on the state level, that that when you when you look at the fingerprints, it's really their fingerprints that are a part of the work.
So I just want to lift that up. And thank you very much for you all being here to be a part of this the dialogue so that we can further the work that is necessary in order to make sure that not only the young people but their families can live whole free thriving lives here in LA County. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Okay. All right. Hi, my name is Millie. I'm with the California Youth Justice Project, former public school teacher, former public defender, mom, civil legal services advocate, and now executive director. Our systems should model the behavior that we seek to see.
If we don't want our young people solving problems in violate in violent and life annihilating ways, we cannot then have systems that do just that. Shout out to Ruth Wilson Gilmore for reminding us of what it means to truly believe that life is precious. Not just a victim's life, not just a police officer's life, not just a model student's life, but all life. You spent the morning in one of our juvenile halls, Los Padrinos, where you got to witness the promise and potential of young people that most of our systems are perfectly comfortable pushing so far out of the margins that they will never make their way back. Systems that call on us to build walls and barriers so high that instead of offering our hands to these young folks, we offer barbed wire, pepper spray, an hour of fresh air on a good day of which there are very few, and an unlawfully operating facility according to our board of state and community corrections.
We had a moment, a brief one, where we were reimagining public safety through the blueprint laid out in youth justice reimagined here in LA County. But what I'm seeing on the ground in communities, in courtrooms, in day rooms at LP is that we don't have your buy in because your colleagues seem to prioritize their power and maintaining that power over the preciousness of every single life. Specifically power through remaining in the good graces of law enforcement and by law enforcement I do mean the probation department. Probation representatives have repeatedly noted that their designation as peace officers make them brothers with the sheriff, with local police agencies, with correction officers, not so much the young people in our caging facilities. On Tuesday of this week, 273 of the 282 boys in our juvenile halls were young people of color.
273 of 282. That's almost 96%. As members of the Select Committee for the Status of Boys and Men of Color, I implore you to stop abandoning these young people. I implore you to stop the sanctioning of state violence through the incarceration of our young people. I implore you to acknowledge that we have devalued the lives of these young people by investing in more police and in their training, by limiting their access to quality health care, by offering them a subpar education, by allowing them to experience housing or food insecurity, by criminalizing their survival.
I implore you to stop focusing on how we create humane caging facilities, I but instead, how do we create a world where these facilities are not necessary and where every life is precious? And finally, as a closing thought, this last year has had many of us talking about fascism and threats to our democracy. And in this state of crisis and overwhelm, it is important to remember that caging kids is fascist no matter who the president is. We have never seen these young people as central to how we see our future because the carceral institutions that surveil and control their bodies, the culture that seeps through its walls, the ability to try them as adults, the shackling of their wrists and ankles just to get them to doctor's appointments in the name of public safety, And the claim that probation is a service provider, a rehabilitator, an attempt at protecting young people from entering prison, it's just not it. I'm pretty sure the young folks incarcerated in our juvenile halls, you know, the ones directly impact, would tell you the exact opposite, that none of these institutions serve to protect them, to rehabilitate them, to provide for them.
One of the most important metrics in evaluating the democratic health of a society can be found in how it treats its young people, all of our young people. So I'm asking each of you to do better, to be bold, and to stop prioritizing politics over people. And I'm footnoting Senate Bill three fifty seven if you need more context of an example of how Sacramento chose to leave our young people behind in the name of politics.
Speaker 8
That was powerful, Millie. I'm so happy to be going after you. I want to lift up the name of Brian Diaz. Say his name, Brian Diaz.
Speaker 8
Say his name, Brian Diaz. Brian Diaz. I want to lift up the name of Tariq English. Say his name, Tariq English. Tariq English.
Tariq English. Say his name. Tariq English. My name is Justin Andrew Marks. I'm the co executive director of the Youth Justice Coalition, and we keep us safe.
Not police, not probation. It is appalling still that the largest sexual assault lawsuit was settled here in LA County. And when I say largest in history, I'm talking about before this, it was the Catholic church. So and young people are still in L. A.
County probation supervision. It's disgusting. Now we have a local district attorney, Nathaniel Hawkman, looking to challenge the stories and the proof and evidence provided by survivors. So we've seen pendulum swift shifts nationally, here locally, but at YJC, we operate this space and we welcome you all here at Chuco's Justice Center, formerly David v Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center as you spoke to. Here, we've transformed courtrooms into classrooms.
We've transformed jail cells into music studios and fitness centers. We've transformed parking lots into rebel gardens, and we turned students into leaders. Right? We recognize the power that comes when community comes together. Right?
Recognizing that these systems of I use the term Babylon were never meant to keep us safe. That we are safe when we know our neighbors. We are safe when we're fed, when we're housed. We're safe when we have access to supportive adults and mentors, not more access to cages because LAPD and probation are open twenty four hours a day. We have to close our doors at nine, right?
So, thinking about what what this world that we're building looks like, it looks like a flip of that of our priorities. YJC operates a high school. YJC Youth Justice Coalition was founded in 2003 by incarcerated community members, youth, and their families. In 2007, some of those same young people said, we keep getting kicked out of LAUSD schools. We need our own school.
And so we founded FreeLA High School. We love our acronyms. FreeLA stands for fighting for the revolution to educate and empower Los Angeles. That's what we do here. Since 2007, we've graduated over 500 students with a budget smaller than what LAPD spends on printing each year.
So when we talk about abolition, we are and and people think that we're crazy. When we talk about abolition and and and ending these things, people say it's like, we're not it's not safe. We're not there yet. But when we talk about the abolition of slavery, they said we had drapotomania. They said that wanting to be free was a sickness.
Well, I got that. Whatever that is, I got that. That's what we have. We wanna be free. Right?
And so, like Millie and other speakers here are imploring you to do is to put people over politics. For us to put you first, to put our future first, to put our priorities, where our budget is. Right? To make sure that those things line up, that we're not spending more on locking kids up. It costs over $800,000 to keep one youth locked up in a cell for a year.
Do you know how much we community can do with that? Do you know how much those parents can do with that? Right? So, I'm sad, I'm angry, but I'm also grateful to be here with this community at my back, right, to be surrounded by these stories on the walls of how we got to a department of youth development, where LA County spent more on animal control and stray dogs than it did on young people compared with cities like Atlanta and New York. And so in 2022, we celebrated the establishment of the Department of Youth Development.
And the contradiction still lies is that that's another government agency. How was that the community's victory? Right? So but the devil's in the details and implementation, and yet we continue to see probation funded. We continue to see increases in spending for the sheriffs, for LAPD, and yet we see the highest rates of student achievement ever.
We see lowering rates of crime and murder, but yet the spending doesn't match that. And so again, I implore you, like others have, to put people over politics and to fund youth development and to come back to Chucos. We the county owns this building. We are a community organizing organization, and the county is both our landlord and our organizing target, which provides a unique tension. But we are launching our courtrooms to classrooms capital campaign.
We are looking for champions who want to help us have community ownership over this building and to spread this model to other parts of the county so that we can help keep young people free, build youth centers, and build youth leaders. Thank you.
Speaker 1
I think every speaker, all of us up here are wondering who's going to top that, and it just progressively got stronger and stronger and stronger. Thank you for that testimony. Colleagues, any questions or comments from the first panel? Mr. Carver.
First of
Speaker 4
all, incredible. I'm grateful that you all are in the space you are with the community alongside you. When we just went to the facility earlier and met with these incredible young people And, with, you know, obviously there were probation representatives and other folks in the room. But, the youth were very candid because when we asked them what it is that they needed and you know you always hear about all the programs are getting and all that they're like we need more programs we need more programming. When we get something then when we finally get something probation says well we can't do it and they keep getting excuses about that.
Now, when I was hearing some of your comments that's really what I was thinking about is that even when we even when they do win and they fight for something and they get it they still don't get it. You know, and so, what are given the fact it costs so much and I suppose any all of you have expertise in this area, given the fact that it does cost so much to incarcerate. I'm of the same opinion that, you know, the if you just look at the fiscal cost, putting aside the human cost, which, of course, in itself is justifiable enough. But even at the fiscal cost, how much you can do with that money if you wrap that around that individual young person with services, with schooling, with food, with rent? Are there concepts or practices in place that are doing that or that are showing that so that we can say, hey, instead of locking this person up, we gave them all of this.
And so, I'm trying to find things we can replicate, you know take to other counties take throughout the state. So if you have any examples of that happening where you were able to look back and say hey look county this is what we were able to do if you had locked this person up this young person up it would have cost this much for 20% of that 10% of that we were able to do this any anything that comes to mind or any ideas of how we could do that that come to mind
Speaker 9
sit sorry that was so loud I sit on the probation oversight commission as supervisor Mitchell's appointees I have the opportunity to go inside the facilities announced and unannounced and just plus one to your comment about the fact that young people are craving more and it is atrocious to me that we are not doing more with this, like, captive audience. And truly, they are captured, captive. And it's important to acknowledge that if we're not doing right by them inside, then really we have no business caging them. We never have business caging them but I just feel like if we're not spending this $500,000,000 budget on actual rehabilitation then I think there are better places that we can spend this money. The Department of Youth Development which is another county department here in LA County has started what's called a Ray program and it is inside the courtrooms supporting young people at arraignment.
So basically you know the judge has the opportunity to hear the case see the complaint and then I guess check-in with the Department of Youth Development to see if they have services to support this young person but it's important to acknowledge that even as we were talking about Senate Bill three fifty seven which called for shifting some of probation's responsibilities to the Department of Youth Development only in LA County because the probation department is not only like flailing it is failing right that the ship has sunk it's not sinking And so there was so much opposition both by your colleagues, partners I'm not sure how you refer to them and obviously the Probation Association and their unions.
Speaker 9
But all that to say even just the simple act of sharing a case file with the Department of Youth Development raised red flags for the probation department. If the Department of Youth Development could review a case file they could step in in that forty eight to seventy two hours when a young person is mandatorily detained pursuant to certain provisions of the Welfare and Institutions Code and actually assess whether a young people whether a young person could be safely released, whether there are these services that we could wrap around this young person, give a probation department that is requesting continuances because they don't have enough folks to do their jobs. So we have another body here that is able and capable of doing that job but we need you all to give them the power to
Speaker 4
And that's exactly why I asked the question because that's a function of these hearings aren't are not simply to even though if that was the only thing would still be valuable to get feedback but it's okay what do we do with it what actions do we take and that's a very specific ask that I think we can look into say okay well probation if you're not going to release that then the whole function of that whole of having that those bodies there is irrelevant. And so, anyway, I really appreciate that very specific feedback on that.
Speaker 7
So, to add to that as examples, I want to I'll go two different examples. The first one, Measure J. I have the privilege of sitting on the CareFirst Community Investment Advisory Committee that stewards the resources, that were allocated to Measure J. And there's a whole history of, like, Measure J going to court and then that being legal, but then it then being legal. Like but, you know, shout out to the commitment of the Board of Supervisors in 2020 to make sure that regardless of what the legal case was for Measure J to actually get the dollars up the door by way of CFCI.
I bring it up because, like even more detailed and specific looking at the third party administrator and the resources that it stewards, is a great example of what happens when you can utilize dollars, that are are an alternative to incarceration and actually getting those dollars out to community and what type of impact it can actually make in community. Over 400 different organizations are actually, it's more than that now. But in the first three years of the funding allocations that were allotted toward the third party administrator, which is Amity Foundation, is the third party administrator that's actually stealing the funds. 400 plus organizations that are doing work in community, several of them being doing work directly with young people, right? The transformative nature of the these dollars are are impacting hundreds of thousands of Angelenos' lives every single day.
Now, the counterpart to this is that, yes, the, third party administrator is doing an amazing job and they have a dashboard so you can actually see all the, you know, magnificent work that's happening in community. But the county departments got the greater majority of the dollars. Like, we're we're talking about, since the, inception of the work, near billion dollars that have gone out the door or supposed to have gone out the door as far as Measure J is concerned. And the departments have been slow walking their their work to actually get the dollars out the door to take care of things, right? So you have this, If you want to look at a an example of the juxtaposition between, if you just give the money to the community members, we're to do what we need to do versus giving it to the establishment to continue the the bullshit that they regularly do on a regular basis of, like, trying to figure out the contracts.
And I just I can't get the like, it's it's ridiculous. And I think, as a different example, you move over to BSAP and LAUSD, you know, you heard the data that Joseph was already, espousing around the impacts that those dollars have had in, in, you know, for the young people in several different schools across, the county. But even those dollars, they they slow walked the dollars out the door for that one too. But for the one for the schools that actually did roll out their resources the best that they could and had community, engagement, community based organizations that are impacting those, impacting those students, that's where the results come from. And who and who's can't imagine how much more impact we could have if the bureaucracy was out the way.
Right? If you if you give the ability for community members to, do what we do best, for for community based organizations to do what we do best as far as how we take care of each other and take care of community, I I think these are two really good examples of, like, how we can really get government to do the main thing that it's supposed to do, which is only just be the you you got the money, release the funds, let us do what we do here in the community. So
Speaker 1
Yeah. We'll have you be the closer for this one so we can get to make sure we have enough time for all of the youth, but absolutely.
Speaker 5
Okay. One specific example that I want to name is Beloved Village. So, Beloved Village is a project that the Young Woman's Freedom Center created a couple years ago because in this work to end the incarceration of girls, one thing that we hear all the time is that there's nowhere for them to go. There are no beds. Their family cannot support them.
But, Beloved Village works creatively to find alternatives to incarceration. So, Beloved can actually like fund families to house youth. Sometimes we hear that, you know, parents are going through their own things, substance abuse issues. They're navigating the system on their own, so they can't support their children in the way that they wish to, but there might be an aunt in the family who had she had the funds and the support, the mentorship to take home this child, then, you know, that child should be with their family, not staying in probation because the juvenile halls in LA for girls have largely been that is the placement. There are no placement options for girls, so instead of sending them home, they have to wait and wait and wait in these abusive institutions.
And last year, probation announced that they wanted to move all of the girls from all of our different juvenile halls in LA County and consolidate them all into one camp in Malibu. And us as organizers took this as an opportunity to give them a roadmap. So, went to probation, we went to the board and we offered a rapid release plan where Beloved was going to review case plans. They were also going to be able to fund, I think, up to $1,000 for each young person coming home, but also connect the young people with a mentor and the parent gets a mentor. So, there are real life solutions and alternatives that exist, but they don't look at us.
Speaker 1
That's a really great point. And I think I know for myself I could ask a lot of you a lot of questions and definitely want to follow-up with you, Mr. Williams, about kind of the status of the BSAP program in the wake of what's going on in LAUSD. Right now, we know the superintendent's been put on indefinite paid administrative leave. And I know there's conversations in community about exactly what the FBI is doing because we don't trust the FBI either.
And so know that that's complicated and perhaps or maybe there's a role that the state can play in that. So let's talk offline because I want to make sure that we get room for all of these young people to be heard. Can we give it up for the first panel? For all of our next panelists, please come on up to the front. While they're making their way to the front, I just want to say that we see you Doctor.
David Turner, we see you Mark Philpott, we see you Laquan, we see you Marcus, We see you Jelani. We see all of y'all. We saw you black. I don't know where you at now. So for our next panel, this is an all youth panel, so let's give them our undivided attention.
We've got Jazara Holiday, Cameron Mercer, Kaylee Matthews, Hector John John Gomez, and Marcus Johnson, and we'll start with you, Ms. Holliday. No, we're gonna start with Mr. Mercer. We're gonna start with whoever wanna go first.
Come on, come on, John John.
Speaker 10
Yeah, alright, let's get this over with. First of all, I just want to say thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor. Heart pounding at a thousand right now.
Speaker 10
I don't necessarily know how I'm gonna start this, but just to first off, thank you for the introduction. My name is Hector John Gomez and I do commonly go by John John. And today I was afforded and blessed with the opportunity to come speak in front of you guys through, Hoops for Justice. It's a nonprofit that I've been blessed also to intern with where I publish a monthly newsletter for them every first of the month along with my peer. And just to kind of dive into it and give you my perspective and insight on how things can be changed or add or maneuvered within this justice system, just to first off talk about my experience with Hoops for Justice and if having to sum up my experience with Hoops for Justice in a word, there's a lot of them but when it comes down to it, would say safe.
Well coming up with this is I reflected on a situation where coincidentally it was at another ABMOC Policy Summit back in Oakland in December where I found myself in a circle with mentors of mine Lambert, Rosalino, Sway, also associated with Hoops. And I kind of just caught myself on packaging some things and situations or emotions of mine that I didn't really know that I had to display or that had to come out. So, I guess I was just under like a lot of stress not knowing how to manage my emotions properly and just trying to navigate this reentry process. And, this event, it was just about maybe three or four months that I had been released from custody. Currently, I have been out of custody for seven months.
And, while speaking to my mentors within hoops, I kind of just caught myself balling it and just explaining to them and letting them know kind of everything that's been going on like with myself and not knowing how to properly manage my emotions, not having the right skills to try to like express myself well. And just the space that they provided me with and just the the feedback that I received and then the space that they were able to hold with not being criticized, very unbiased, The situation was very unprompted and back to the word that I said, I just felt safe and it was just with the utmost supportive and uplifting people. And, that has been my experience with Hoops for Justice. And, moving forward, I think a question was, what experience would I like all young people in L. A.
To have? And, when I reflected on this, I think every young people should have an individual in their life who genuinely supports their goals, their path, their values. And, a lot of the times, it's a lot of people with agendas behind the work that they do with the youth. And, I kind of start to peep things, see certain things, get knowledge of different aspects of how programs are ran. And, I think when you have an individual in your life who's genuine and just genuinely wants the best for you, and that's when a youth or individual prevail.
And, when I feel like on a situation like this, I want to touch on two terms and it's mentorship and it's sponsorship. And to give all the kudos to my mentors post release through the duration of my incarceration and currently I'm blessed and grateful for them. But I just want to touch on the term well, I'll give you a simple breakdown of in a couple of words of mentorship and sponsorship. So, mentorship will be an individual in your life who will direct you, give you feedback, and just kind of coach you. Sponsorship is going to be an individual who is invested in you, is going to use their position of power to look out for you, speak for you in a room that you're not in, and allow you to get in position in places where a mentor wouldn't necessarily do.
So a situation like this would just be recently and a sponsor how I would explain that consists of my life would be also Alana from Hoops for Justice. And, just to give one example because there's many, you know, just recently I applied for I applied I did this application for a job, internship, some type of paid work. And, I went through the interview process, I went through the application process, multiple interview processes, and when it came down to it, I wasn't able to fulfill that spot due to my record and due to my background. And, without hesitation, I let Alana know how can we move forward from this or what other alternatives and no questions asked, Alana went out of her way, got in her contact. She didn't tell me go talk to this person here that you could find the answer there.
No, she went out of her way. She called. She emailed. And then, she put me on the email with the person who could give me the direct answers and move forward from there. And, with that, it was a lot of help.
And, I found why and how I could move forward from that and what obstacles or how I would be able to go around it. So, that would be an example of sponsorship her using her influence and her power and her authority to put me in position and help me elevate and grow, not just directing me somewhere. And, I believe a last question that was presented revolving this event was what can the state of California do to better support youth? And, when I thought about this question, I really thought, like, since well, per my situation and circumstances and the whole justice system, I think what the state of California can do to better support youth all across is invest in more robust support and funding to these programs post release because post release and these programs is when all the action and rehabilitation takes place. A lot of the times a lot of the times these nonprofits and these outside organizations are underfunded and it's a hassle and a struggle for them to do what they got to do to support us when in reality it should be the other way.
On the other hand, probation is overly funded, it's heavily funded and it'll make no sense that when all the action in rehabilitation takes place post release that there's insufficient funds for other events, support, resources that our youth can be having. And just to follow-up, for example, it's programs, like programs specifically with HDA, Hoops for Justice, ARC Welcome Home Oasis, Avalon Carver Center. I was I was blessed mind you, seven months of release, I was able to go to Hawaii, to visit a juvenile facility with the prison education program. I was able to go compete, in a jujitsu tournament that I do with my school, Cal State Northridge, in Louisiana. I'm able to go to statewide policy convenings with Hoops for Justice in Sacramento and Oakland.
These events and things that that's happened seven months release have never would have been imagined prior to my incarceration. And what they do to go out of their way and come up with these opportunities for us to go and get involved in, it's amazing and it's a blessing and that's when the rehabilitation takes place. So I feel like what the state of California could do is invest more in these programs and removing the burden from what probation terms and what probation has going on, but that's when the rehabilitation will start to help these youth elevate, prevail, and grow. Thank you, Jon Jon.
Speaker 10
Now, we'll we'll touch on it. We'll it was the overall experience was great. I fought some dudes from the University of Auburn, Texas A and M, North High Point, North Carolina. I had three matches that day. I won my first match.
Okay. I lost my last two matches.
Speaker 10
But the overall experience that I had from never traveling on a plane before Yeah. From representing something other than ours, I represented a team. I represented, there was solidarity with my 40 other individuals that I went to school with. So feeling like I'm able to no. Not even the feeling, but being part of something and having it say it's something tangible or something real.
It's not a facade. It's not it's not a phase or nothing. It's something that's real and it's something that's mean to me and it has meaning in my life. And, it was a great great experience, you know?
Speaker 14
Hello, everybody. Hello? Yep. My name is Cameron, Cameron Mershaw with Who's For Justice. I'm going speak about, you know, investing, right?
So, everybody invests into what? The juvenile justice system. And then we have the schools, right? When we get incarcerated, we're surrounded by staff, right? The staff, though, in order for them to be where they at, they have to what?
Be able to lift up, I think, a 100 pounds or be able to take bear spray. It don't have nothing to do with community. They don't have anything like, oh, you need to have, child development or you need to have accrued business credits, right, so that when you're around youth who are interested in businesses, you'll be able to let them know something. Right? So, we're surrounded by all of these people who have to be aggressive, have to be hella strong, lift up pounds, take bear spray.
And then you guys just expect for us to try to be harder than them. Feel me? We see this. I wanna take bear spray too. You see everybody getting all of these issues.
Right? But we continue to invest into probation. It makes zero sense. You know, we really need community based facilities, not not nothing like we've ever seen. There's not gonna be a school.
There's not gonna be a probation department. There's not gonna be none of that. We need to go somewhere where everybody is together who really wants to do the same thing. You know what I mean? You'll be blessed to come across a staff, you know, who who really would like to give you opportunities and and, a a voice.
You know? I feel like it's the support. You go to school, and, you might get support if you got a teacher who thinking about you, right, when they go home. Right? Same for same thing when you're incarcerated.
You might get support, right, from a staff, right, who who who might be like, damn, I think they need a little bit of this or a little bit of that. And, if they mess with you, you know, if if they if they start to help you out, then you might change. I was blessed to have that. Right? But, I also was with people who was not doing that, You know?
Oh, if you want to get in trouble, don't get caught. Right? So, I just took it I I just I just owned I just owned up. You know what I mean? It's it's a big difference between wanting to do better and just trying not to see when you're doing bad.
And, I feel like all this money and stuff that I've been going into the schools and probation, that's what it's about. Oh, god, it ain't really about us, the youth. Like, come on. You see how he just said something about fighting? He's fighting legally, positively.
Right? He ain't in the in the jail cell fighting crazy, but he came from the school, and it was promoting that. Right? They also said something about safe. Right?
It says safe, you know, with the nonprofit, and that's what it's about. When you're sitting right in those cells, you know, when you're right there with, you know, all of these other people, you're not safe at all. Right? We in the jails. We're not safe.
Right? So if we was to have a community environment, something just like this, right, it it it can't be with people who just ain't who who just pick up a 100 pounds and and and have bear spray sprayed on them and they can, stop and and it doesn't hurt them for two hours because it might hurt the kids and you can't be more hurt than the kids. Do you see the whole focus of this? It'd be making no sense at all. It makes no sense.
But if you surrounded by people who wanna, oh, you don't know how to get your license? Well, I can help you. Look, here go an app. Boom. This is how you go to the DMV.
Look, even while you're incarcerated, you don't read a lot? I feel like you should probably read these right here. Surrounded by people who want to be, like, a part of a journey. Right? Them people who incarcerated, they don't wanna be a part of nothing but, you know, getting their funds, going back to home and coming back.
No, we need to invest in community people for the community so we can save the community. Right? It only makes sense. You got people who've never been incarcerated or anything like that taking care of people who've been going through hell all of their life. It makes zero sense.
They got zero experience. I feel like in order to be a staff for anything, you should probably have to have been incarcerated. It makes zero sense for a person to feel like they could truly understand somebody if if they never been able to experience that. Right? And that's just being empathetic.
You can't even empathize correctly if you understand what the word means, but you would if you've been through it. Right? So it don't even got nothing to do with scholastics and learning this word and all that. No. You you gotta be genuine with it.
And if if you never been through it, you know, how would you really be able to understand that maybe at this moment they not gonna get it? But I know they really can get it. I've seen people not believing themselves say, oh, I I I can't be in the suit. I'm looking at them like, I see you in the suit, though. I see you in the suit.
That's because of the environment that we've been in. Right? That's everything that we've been getting put into us, though. Literally. Literally.
Every day. I saw I know so many people who sit right here, I can't see myself like this. I can't see myself like this. Like, bro, why? But I know why.
It's because that's all we've been surrounded by. Literally, we gotta stop surrounding our youth with these people who got no type of, like they they they don't want to help the youth with becoming a man. The young women were becoming women, trusting in theyself, trusting others, understanding that, you know, not to be greedy, not to have it's a whole lot that we should be pouring into the youth that we don't. Like, we don't do that at all. Like and I was blessed to come across a few people who really did that.
They poured that into me. You know, one of my experiences I had was I I I was bad, bro. I was getting into fights. I was doing all of that. And one time, I I went to court, I came back straight from court, and I got into a fight the same night.
Right? And my staff told me he said, why you do that? I said, because it is. Then he said, why you do that? I said, because it is.
I said, why he said, why you do that? But he kept asking me the same question over and over after I felt like I really gave him a complete answer. I went to my room by myself and I said, why you do that? And I kept it a 100 with myself. Right?
I was honest with myself, but it was because that staff kept pushing me. And that staff right there, whether or not he could pick up bear spray or hold a 100 pounds, didn't none of that matter. What mattered was he was trying he was really trying to make sure that I understood what I was doing. And, like, if I wanted to continue to do that, then I I will have to deal with the consequences because I got in trouble. Right?
I was I was working in there, you know, KP doing all the nice stuff, phone calls and stuff. I I was all that. All that got taken away as soon as I got in trouble. And that's what he was trying to let me know right there, like, look. You keep doing stuff for no reason.
Right? Then you're gonna end up feeling like you've got no purpose. So you you have to, like, we gotta be surrounded by people who give us a reason when we don't feel like we got it because then we feel like there's no purpose to nothing. There's no purpose to nothing. Right?
So, that that's what we gotta do. We gotta just be there, you know, for the youth and let them understand that we understand. And even if we don't understand, we're to get them the benefit of the doubt because, like I said, seeing my own homies same age as me say, I can't see myself in a suit. And I'm looking like, I can't. I'm a show y'all, though.
I'm a show y'all. I'm a show them for sure that we're be able to do all of that. But, you feel me, that's the community that's gonna be there for me. And if nobody gonna be there for my people, I'm a be there for them. Right?
I'm a be the one who gonna really be different.
Speaker 1
That was that was powerful, bro. Incredibly powerful. One more time. Also a little trick with the suit thing, you mix it with the same pro clubs you used to wear at the start. You ain't got to go straight to the tie, you know what I mean?
Yeah. You know, absolutely.
Speaker 15
My name is Jazar Holliday from Youth Justice Coalition, sheher pronouns. I'm a ask I'm a ask for grace because it was brought to my attention that I have not told my story like in a long time. I think like when you when you don't tell your testimony a lot, you tend to like suppress some things. And some of that kind of happened to me earlier, so I just want to ask for that now. So today I'm going to be talking about my systems of harm that was set up to like basically get me to where I was.
My systems of harm was when my father was deported back to Belize at my two months of living, a mother who is now a single mother of two who struggled with substance abuse, which led me and my brother into CPS. I heard somebody speaking earlier, and they were saying that when a young girl gets incarcerated, now they're not letting them go to their family. I thank God that I was able to go to my family at the time of me and my brother being taken away by CPS. I then moved to San Bernardino, California. I'm only 23.
My brother is 24. My brother started taking a position of taking care of me. I didn't know who my mom was, but he always told me that she was coming to get us. Fast forward to growing up in elementary, the system used my dad to testify, and that would be the only time I met my dad one time for three days in a hotel room with police and twenty four seven escorts. We couldn't go eat.
We couldn't go walk. We couldn't do anything without them being there. This instilled trauma, one parent being taken away from me and the other with the lack of resources going through postpartum depression, the portion of her partner turned back into alcoholism. This lasted all the way up until eighth grade. In middle school, I was bullied.
That resulted into fighting. That resulted into me getting kicked out of high school. In ninth grade, I got kicked out of LAUSD. Being bullied for your circumstances and things you cannot control drove me insane, taking matters into my own hands. I caught two cases within the same month, two felonies, and was threatened with the same fate as my dad, deportation.
For a first time offense. So, I just want to kind of go in a little bit on that part because I feel like that's what really shaped me. Like I said, that was my first time being involved with the system. And I feel like court was like, kind of like a ring around the rosy type thing. Like, would go to court, and they would send me home.
I would go to court, they would just give me a new date, send me home. And it's like, I didn't know, you feel me, what was going to happen. And I feel like that's like the most, that's kind of like one of the most horrifying parts. Like, when you get a case, you take like, what, a year or two years for them to figure out or for them to try to work with you to do anything. It's like, I don't have I understand I messed up.
I understand that, you know, I'm not the one supposed to be given the rules here, whatever the case may be. But, at the same time, I feel like probation has to understand that, and I think we all know that life and time don't wait for nobody. So, it's like when mistake is made, in that moment, it's either a teaching moment or it's a moment to pass along. And, I feel like that moment in my life should have been a teaching moment right then and there, rather than having the DA the first thing she said as soon as she walked in the courtroom, she looked at me, she looked at the judge, she said, Her father's not a citizen, her father was deported at two months old, so what can we do with her? Is literally what she said.
And, I looked at the, I don't know nothing about nothing. This is before YJC. I just looked at the lady that was representing me, and I told her, like, I don't know my dad. I've only met him one time. I don't know him.
I only know my mom. They looked at my birth certificate. My dad, his name is on my birth certificate, but not his signature. That's the only thing stopping me from getting deported. Another thing that they tried to do was to drug test me.
My case was not drug involved or anything related, anything like that. That was another thing. I turned to the lady and said, don't do any of that. It's just like they wanted any reason to either lock me up or get rid of me. And thank God for putting that on my heart to know, I guess, what I knew then Because, thank God, the judge said, Well, you will have to bring some type of evidence or some type of something as to why you want this girl drug tested, so right now, we'll leave that alone.
Deportation, we'll leave that alone. And, I want to say I was out of school for maybe like a month, because when you get kicked out of LAUSD, it's not many places you can go. It's just really not. Not in LA County, there's not a lot of places you can go. I was getting on a bus going all the way to Long Beach, getting on a bus.
I was going far to go to school, continuation school. And, academics has never been a problem for me, so I'm still like a hands on learner. I want to sit in class. I want to come to school every day. I don't want to get a packet, you see me two times a week, and I especially math, boo.
I don't know what's going on. I I need you to I need you to sit in front of me, help me turn one into x and two into b. I need you to do that for me. So, that was one of the things that that I struggled with and why I stayed out of school, and that caused my probation officer to try to put me into like a girls home or some type of boot camp or something like that. And, that also like really stressed me out because my mom, she was all for it at this point.
Because, I feel like when you go through so much trauma and you inflict so much trauma, my mom was just, Add like a whatever's going to help this girl, you know? Because she finally understood. I did what I did. Like I said, I called two cases in one month, maybe like two weeks apart at the most, you know? So, number one, my mom got that phone call, my mom, she immediately said, I'm not coming to get her.
That's what she said. So, it's like, when you come from a parent that she already was tired, she already got two kids, She don't you feel me? We didn't have no support system, so I I when I grew up, I did have to apologize to my mom. Maybe like a year or two ago, I did apologize to her because when you're a kid, you may want want want want want, but you don't understand what you need. But, I do now that I'm an adult.
I know exactly what I went without that I needed that turned me into the person that I became to be. So, when I came to YJC and I was told, well, I had mandated counseling. So, Ms. Stacy, she's the transformative justice coordinator here, and that's who my counseling was assigned to. I didn't trust nobody.
I didn't trust no therapy. I trust talking to nobody. I remember we did family counseling before, me, my mom, and my brother. And, I just remember I said something wrong, or I said too much. I'm not going to say said something wrong.
I said something that was happening to me a way that I felt, and it backfired against my mom. And so, from that moment forward, it's like already being involved with CPS. Then you go to family counseling, and then something else happened. It's like, I don't want to talk to nobody. Evidently, what's going on in my house, like, I'm sorry, my mom I live in a black house, so my mom said whatever goes on in this house, stayed in this house.
And, that's what a lot of us grew up on, honestly. Like, used to get in trouble for telling people what was going on or the way we felt. So, when I met Ms. Stacy, I had that same attitude, that same it don't matter what's going on, I just need to sit in her office so she could sign my papers so that when I go to court, I'm good. When she tried to get through to me at first, like I said, I was just a brick wall for maybe like four months, going in there, laying on her couch, not saying nothing.
She said, Ask me these questions, and I was just like, I just didn't think, like, I just thought it was another something else to catch me up, basically. And so, I was just doing she would just allow me to just go in there and just however we chilled. However, you know, if it was just us breathing or her, she would turn on lessons or workshops on her computer about love, self care, about self hatred and self harm because that's what I was going through at the time. I had so much going on with me, I genuinely hated myself. So, when I was coming into this building every day, I was coming in here crying.
I was coming in here with just all these different emotions to the point where sometimes I couldn't even do my work. So, after the four months of just being up under her, because not talking to her, not getting to know her, not her getting to know me, just being up under her and just kinda seeing, well, to me, I was just like, she's just a sweet little old lady. After all that time, that's that's just I'm like, she's just a sweet little old lady. I genuinely felt like she couldn't, like, she couldn't harm me, and that's what made me open up to her. And by me opening up to her, that pushed me around to a lot of different people.
And please cut me if I'm getting long winded. I know there's other people in time. That's what pushed me around to my other mentors in the space. So, Mr. V pushed me to Miss Stacy.
Miss Stacy pushed me to Natalie. And like I said, I had some some stuff, the reason why I hated myself. So it's like this whole building fixed a lot of that. Right? And without YJC taking, like, the second chance, the sitting and waiting and comforting and just everything that I needed.
Honestly, I could say this building and the people in this building have seen me at every stepping stone in my life. When I was down on the floor, coming up, going back down, My mom, my brother, they literally, like my whole family, I'm very grateful. And, this is why we need youth centered places because not as soon as somebody comes to me with something, I just be like, Go to my job, YJC. We have this, we have that. If we don't have it, we somebody that connects.
Have somebody that connects. Probation don't have that. I got my probation slip with all these rules and where I can't go and where I can't be, you need to complete community service, you need to complete anger management, you need to it's all you need to complete. It's not nowhere I can complete. Telling Y'all me where to go, but they tried to set me up to get drug tested before after court, you know?
So, it's like they have their ways, but it's not, you know, genuine help. And, it's like when you go to them I went to my probation officer one time, and I told her that I actually needed help. I told her I've been working since I was 14 years old. I told her, I need a job. This is when, I wanna say, like, a little bit before COVID, I told them, I need a job.
I'm not in the month I was out of school, I said, okay. If I'm gonna be out of school for a month, then I need to go to work. I need to do something. Like, I can't I can't just be out of school. I need a job.
I told her I needed a job. I was never given no type of resource. When it came to me looking for a school, the reason why I got in touch with YJC is because another student recommended me here. Like I said, the only thing that was recommended to me by probation was boot camp because I couldn't find a school, but not finding a school for me. I don't understand that.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
We'll go with miss miss Matthews and then mister Johnson. You're be the closer.
Speaker 11
Good afternoon, everybody. I see a lot of familiar faces in here. A lot of new faces too. So I'm just starting off with, like, introducing myself and basically just talking about, like, my lived experience and my journey and, like, all the dope work that I do. So for everybody that's new, my name is Kaylee Matthews.
I go by Tuchi. She, her pronouns. I'm here representing the Young Women Freedom Center. My title with the Young Women Freedom Center is the Liberation Fund Fellow. I'm currently right now a student at Trade Technical College pursuing my communications degree.
Speaker 11
Thank you. Also, I am also system impacted by the foster care system, the prison school pipeline, and also the juvenile justice system. I am the oldest of seven. I grew up with a single mother, so I always been in a position to be a leader and lead and, you know, guide people to like I feel like that's my purpose a little bit. If I'm talking fast, it's because I'm nervous and I just put all eyes on me.
But I really just wanted to shout out Eliana for giving me the opportunity, you know, to be on this panel today because when she thought about me and made me feel special, when people think about me and want me to come and talk, I just feel like, you know, I'm in you know? Yeah. So basically, I'm just talking a little bit about the center and how I came across them. So I started working at the young well, actually, I started out as participant with the Young Women Freedom Center when I was 17 years old. I was navigating domestic violence and homelessness.
And when I first started at the center, like, was going in there and I'm like, who is these people? They all in my face, you know? And, honestly, like, I was given a platform that I didn't even know I was given until, like, as as I started being, like, more loyal and going to, like, these spaces. So I started off going to Freedom Circle, and I they the Freedom Circle is paid. It's our group that's run every Tuesday and it's paid.
It's $25 each participant and basically we talk a little bit about political education. We host healing circles and we also do like a lot of like we just started like teaching sex ed and like other things like that. When I started going to the center, was going to the Freedom Circle, I'm like, what am going to do with $25? Like, I'm 17, I'm working two jobs, like, you know, like I'm trying to get out the situation that I'm in, so I'm trying to get any dollars by all means, you know. But I ended up getting hired as an intern.
I did the six month internship program, graduated that, got the opportunity to, like, travel. I did a lot of cool work with, like, a bunch of orgies in here, like, Students Reserve. I did a panel with them. I've worked with YJC. I've worked with actually, I'm working I'm on the board of OICR, so I do a lot of I represent LA County with them.
The list could go down the line, but being with the center, like, I was able to, like, get a platform, you know, and, like I said, I'm the oldest of seven, so I have a little sister that I take care of who's 16 right now. And, like I said, I grew up in foster care, so a lot of my siblings were, like, taken away from me very young. So me and my sister, like, are like this. Like, we have more, like, a mom and daughter relationship than we have, like, siblings, but, honestly, like, that's, like, the person I do this for. This is why I do this work.
This is why this is real. This is why I have no problem telling people, like, my experiences and what I've been through, you know, navigating, like, all that stuff at such a young age. And now being 21, I look back and I'm just like, damn, girl. Like, you you doing a lot. You know?
So with that being said, also being with the center, I've done a lot. I've hosted the DYD Summit. That's when I really was able to start, like, my networking and, like, getting to know, like, a bunch of these dope orgs that are in here right now. And I was able to create my program, Black Girls in Charge, which was
Speaker 11
Black Girls In Charge is a healing mental health program that I created for girls, and gender expensive black, girls in LA County to basically teach them on how to, like, practice care and be advocates in their community, but also learn, like, to practice stillness and stuff like that. I feel like growing up, I wasn't able to practice being soft, you know, like, being in another juvenile hall and being an at risk youth, right, like everybody always see me for like my tattoos and not like necessarily like who I am, but then when they talk to me they're like, oh, you're very intelligent and you're very well spoken. But I didn't really get those opportunities going through that because I felt like I was very standoffish. I was independent very young, you know, like I've been taking care of myself since I was 14 years old. And I didn't have nobody, like, really patting me on the back at that time until I came across the center.
And they know what's up. So, I don't even got a cute girl down the line. But I want to close out real quick and just say that I think putting more youth in level in high level positions and just remember that some of the best degrees and ideas don't come from I'm sorry, my bad. Some of the best ideas don't come from titles or degrees, they come from perspective, and young peoples have perspective that the world hasn't heard yet. So, thank you.
Uh-uh, you're making me nervous. Thank you.
Speaker 12
Alright. Get this right real quick. How you all doing? I'm Marcus Johnson. I don't even know where to start, to be honest.
Like, I'm just blessed that I I'm alive, still alive, still coming here, still breathing. Feel me? I woke up this morning. You feel me? Gave me gave me another opportunity.
You feel me? And, I really appreciate my my my organization because they just they they don't know what they did for me when I was locked up. I don't I was I just came I just got done from doing, like, five years altogether, and it was hard because How old are you, Marcus? I'm 23 now. It was hard because when I first got locked up, I was fresh 17.
And from 17 all the way to where I'm 21, my family been, like, my tree just been dying, if that makes sense, like, back to back, back to back. And as as as young as I was, I didn't have no type of structure, no type of no type of I didn't see nothing. Like, the only person I would talk to every day is my mom. That's my best friend. That's all I got.
She she my, like, literally my rock. I didn't have no father. I have a stepfather, but it got to a point where I didn't look at him as a as a man because of what the things he was doing. He chose drugs instead of his family. So if you choosing drugs over your family, why would I do why would I follow in your footsteps?
So I feel like I can make a I can make a difference in my community for sure because I know what my community needs. Instead of instead of these these these like, these police programs and stuff like that. I understand it's cool and all that, but they don't want to be that. They don't they don't understand what what really goes on behind police closed doors. It's like, if you go on probation right now, they can show you they can show you all the good they got.
But once you leave, oh, it's going back to regular program. It's fights, banging, tagging on walls, it's like, it's basically the streets. I survived five years, five years straight. I'm talking about from riots to back against the wall to helping people out to being the most upstanding You feel me? I was upstanding.
Like, I didn't have no more fights until I turned 19. I stopped fighting. And after that, I started using my mind. And like he said, like Cameron said, There's certain staff that's in there that will help you and make sure that you get your help. Like, I don't want to put out no names, but it's certain staff for sure that will help you get books, get food, workout equipment, exercise, give you program papers, things to do to expand your mindset to show you it's more than just being here and finding you a purpose in life.
And that's that's I don't even know what to say after that. It's like, I survived. I did it. I made it. And guess what?
My my organization is still here. And we still doing great things, and it's nothing nothing nothing but to to keep going. I really want to appreciate my mentor, not you. I'm I'm just playing. One of my mentors, Sway, my boss is somewhere around here.
But Oh, yeah, this Shout out to boss, that's smart. My boss though, like, I'm talking about when I was in jail I didn't understand nothing. She the one who created who helped me. I'm not even gonna say She she didn't even do the work for me, but she pushed me forward to start my own clothing brand. And this is the guy who helped me with my logo.
Speaker 12
Yeah, did. I did. I did. I was nervous, man. I didn't know.
This this my cousin stuff. So, I always support I support everything. You feel me? So, if I'm not wearing my brand, I'm wearing my cousins, uncles, stuff like that. But, they pushed me to where I want to know more about life, not just my community.
I want to know about other communities, different communities, different cities, different states. I just came back from Sacramento on my birthday. Like, what? On a what? On my birthday.
I got to miss I missed you on my birthday, if you didn't know. If you didn't know, I missed you on my birthday. So it was the best the best experience, the best time, my first time on a plane. And, like, it's like, it's more opportunities to come. And I I feel like I could do more and we can do more.
The more the question that that that stood out to me was what can California do for the youths? They can do way more than what they're doing now. I can say that. The community that we got right now is nothing but opportunities. If there is if you can show if it if you bring a football to a to a a a nigger's in Gardens, guess what?
You got you got four teams. You got you got four teams. You go to Ted Walkins Park, you got a football program. You can start day what's that called? Nightlife nightlife activities.
It's like, it's a lot of stuff going on that parks after dark. See? He know what I'm talking about, parks after dark. I knew
Speaker 12
Summer night Yes. Ted Watkins Park. Yes. Ted Watkins Park. Like, I I done grew up to where I grew up everywhere.
Like, it don't even make sense to how many times I moved, how many rats I done battled in in my life. You feel me? I'm talking about the rats was like, look like they came from New York. And I'm only four years old. I'm protecting them from my mom.
I'm protecting them from my mom. I'm four years old, protecting them from my mom. And how am I supposed to do that? How am I to know these is not pets, these not this not normal, this not what we supposed to be having? Why am I battling rats?
Why am battling roaches? Why am I box of cereal only got two crumbs left and a roach in there? Eating my cereal. I'm hungry still. Like, it's like, I feel like we can really do more.
And I know we can. I know we can. Probation probation, they can get it together, but that funding they got they need to get put put that into community. That's that's that. I ain't no pat.
And, I really appreciate y'all for having me too because I didn't know if I was on you feel me? If I was gonna get nervous and tell me to bail out on y'all, but
Speaker 12
You was gonna have to get your interview some way, And I I really appreciate y'all for having me, though. I really do. And, boss, I appreciate you for coming. Yes, sir.
Speaker 3
just want to appreciate you all. I learned so much. Know, desire you sharing your story as somebody who had to not only battle a bunch of stuff, but then also had to battle the immigration system and fear deportation. That hit hard for me. And knowing that people weren't there for you when they needed you to be.
But then being able to find people, your folk, who could be there for you, that was really powerful for me. I think all of you talked about the fact that there were a couple of things that California could do. One, making sure to put the resources where they are needed the most, right? Kaylee, you talked about that. Cameron, you talked about making sure to have training for and putting people in front of you who actually care about you in our systems as a critical piece.
I mean, John John, your story's about just making sure that you said it, like having an individual in your life who could support you and who shares your values and who can lift you up. And you taught me to really hold the idea of mentorship and sponsorship as something I think that we should all personally, individually do as something that we should be doing. And of course, Marcus, you rounded it up with really talking about the idea, particularly for our young men of color, this idea of my tree has been dying. That's powerful.
Speaker 12
It's true because, like, when you look around, you don't see too many too many people on the streets no more. You do, but you don't. It's like every time you see somebody on the street, either they look completely covered up, masked up, like hoodies on. It's like it's a thousand degrees outside. Why do you got a why do got a shisty on?
Why do you got a mask on your face? It's 200 degrees outside. Why are you wearing all black? It's not regular. That's not normal.
That's not how we should be walking around. We should be able to be comfortable in our skins, not hiding our face and trying to hide our identities because people looking for us are people just looking. Like, I don't know what what they looking for, but they looking for something. I got pulled over probably, like, twice already just for being black. And I didn't even do nothing.
I know I'm on probation, but I didn't even do nothing. I'm walking home. I'm not even supposed to be out I'm supposed to be outside only till 10:00 at night. If I'm walking home at nine 09:30 and I'm getting home at till ten, I should have that that little little space right there, I should be okay to perfectly go home. But if I get if I get stopped and I gotta explain to my probation number why I got stopped because of being black, oh, I ain't got nothing else to say to you.
You know why I got pulled over. I didn't have no weapons, no drugs, no anything. So why You feel me? It's it really is dying though. It's a lot of us dying.
It's and it's not it's not cool. I don't I don't like people seeing I don't like seeing suicides. I don't like people seeing getting murdered or anything like that. I don't want to see nobody get arrested at that if I can help. Thank you.
Speaker 3
And then hearing Kaylee talk about the fact that you are the oldest of seven and you as an older sister at 21 feel like you are a parent to your 16 year old sister that's real. What I mostly heard bottom line is that we need to step up in making sure that we invest in youth led organizations, youth empowered organizations, community based organizations, organizations of the community, and divest in our probation system. So I want to thank you for making sure that we had that takeaway or at least my takeaway around that. But if you all could just follow-up with any ideas around other things that we should be watching out for as it relates to stepping up and making sure that we're supporting organizations and how we should approach probation. Jazara.
Speaker 15
You can hear me. Sorry. Mental health. Mental health is a big thing these days. I was just saying this earlier, it's a lot of death in the air in every form.
I've seen people fall off the freeway, like literally, like tip-off the freeway and just be passed away. There's been a lot of accidents. There's been a lot of shootings. There's been a lot of kidnappings. Like, it's literally in the air.
I think a lot of people are having, like, not even a mental health decline. I feel like nobody been paying attention to I feel like mental health didn't really become, like, this big thing till COVID. Right? Nobody really paid attention about how being locked indoors can can bring up a lot of stuff that you thought, oh, because I go to work every day and because I take my dog to the park, and because I take my kids to school, and I've suppressed all these things that I'm fine until we were not fine. And a lot of people still have not been fine.
I was in therapy before COVID. I have not been in therapy since, the middle. I know I'm not fine. I know I'm not fine. Therapy is a resource that I feel like every youth need.
Like I said, what goes on, not even just in the homes can cause children traumatic. But y'all also gotta realize that this stuff do run-in, like, families, like your family tree, your family blood, you know? Like, there is statistics around age when men show signs of mental health, when women stress too much and they take too much on that they can take on signs of mental health, we do get it later, but we still can't get it. Like, I have a cousin who literally tells me all the time, don't take so much on. Don't let everything pile on because, yes, you say you're fine.
Yes, you are coping now, but down the line, you might just be like your mom. And then I really sit there and think about it, like, my grandmother has literally been in a psych ward since I was a little girl. Don't even know her, never met her before. I just know her first and last name. And my mom, you ask me, I think she's walking around undiagnosed.
My brother is the only diagnosed person in our family, and COVID brought that out. So it's like, you know, I feel like these are things that we really need to pay attention to. And when a person says they need help in a type of way, one thing is a bridge to another. You ain't got no house. You ain't got nowhere to to lay your head, to call home, or to at least just feel safe.
You don't have nothing. I literally just said that yesterday. If I was to lose my house, I really don't too much care about having no car. If I lose my house, I don't have nothing. I don't have nowhere to go.
I don't have no family. I don't have no mom. I don't have no dad. I don't have a grandfather. I have nobody but Jazar.
And, there's a lot of just Jazars in the world. There's a lot of just jazars without a home. There's a lot of just jazars without a car. There's a lot of just jazars without Chucos, without Stacy, without a lot of things that I have in this building that a lot of people can't access because there's not enough of it.
Speaker 11
I just wanted to say I just wanted to say one last thing that it's important that we, like, y'all take in everything that we're telling y'all because it's a lot of other people out here that's not talking about this, you know. And it's very important that we implement long term jobs, given opportunities that where we can put ourselves in these places to be able to speak on behalf of the needs that we have, you know. Like, think a lot of times a lot of people think, like, oh, well, I gave them this opportunity now. I'm just letting them get on with it. And it's just like, no.
Like, we don't know how might not we might not know how to ask for that additional help. We all grew up in systems where we had to take care of ourselves. So you helping us is not showing that loyalty or showing that that relationship that's built and strong. It's just talk, and talk is cheap. You know?
So yeah. Thank you all so much.
Speaker 4
Try to just quickly just make a comment. You all were amazing. We got a lot of feedback from you. Assemblymember Bonta went over some of that direct feedback. I just want to add, I really appreciate, Kaylee, you talking about putting youth in high level positions, give them a seat at the table.
Don't just talk down to them, elevate them. I appreciated that. And also, Cameron and Marcus talked somewhat about this as well about how the probation officer trained they're essentially trained in conflict not conflict resolution or certainly not in how to elevate you all right and I know that some of us have had the opportunity to go to Norway to see how they've retrained their correctional officers to actually train them in sociology, take have them take sociology classes, have them take different types of training other than just creating an Us versus them kind of environment. And I know both of you alluded to the fact, Mark, you specifically said you won't give names of those that are helping you. And that's a very sad statement, but it's a very true statement because I know if you do, they won't be there next week.
And that's a very sad statement to make. We should be elevating those that are helping you and finding a way to do that. But I know it's easier said than done, I appreciate you giving that feedback.
Speaker 10
I just shortly and quickly want to piggyback off of what Kaitlyn said in putting youth in position of power. I believe this setting is something that should happen more and should be more consistent. This is kind of something that I've always thought about and asked for because it's a lot of probation and organizers who look amongst each other for resolutions and solutions on what can help these youth, but the answers, in reality, are gonna come from the youth themselves and the people through experience. Because if a program or something set in place for us that's meant to help us and help us grow, and if it doesn't work for us, then it's not gonna work for the program providers. So it's settings like this where we're able to utilize and express ourselves and give you guys the input, and hopefully you guys do take it and reflect on it and do whatever it is you guys do with this information to move on with that and build off of that because the answers are gonna come from the youth and the individuals that are whether it's it's LRPs or whether it's programs program for providers looking for solutions, it's not going to come talking amongst the people providing.
It's going to talk about the recipients of the programs and the individuals living in LRPs. And that's kind of all I wanted to touch on. And I'm just blessed, again, to be in this setting and position amongst all these peers of mine and my support system and you guys so we could actually express this and and hopefully build off this, you know. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And just uplifting my colleagues' comments and thank you so much to each and every one of you for your powerful, powerful, testimony and for sharing your story here today. Talking a lot of notes here and we have a lot of work ahead to continue to empower our young people. I heard students at TradeTech at CSUN working with Amity Foundation, working on a number of issues on justice issues and TradeTech.
I had the opportunity to serve on the Community College Board and when I was at TradeTech. When we represent TradeTech and many other programs, trying to continue to fund programs that like Project Rebound and other opportunities to really make sure that we're providing these opportunities in our community colleges, our CSUs, our UCs. And this is something that, due to budget process, last year I had a chance to participate in Assembly Select meeting in Donovan and really looking at educational opportunities for folks in the system and folks when it come out post release. So we need to know that we need to do a lot more around this space. And I'm glad that I'm grateful that all of you have shared a powerful story and to really uplift those voices here and to really make sure that we continue to do more to support our young people.
Thank you, mister chair.
Speaker 12
I wanted to add add one more thing. For educational purposes, in the probation pro in the probation program, educational service is not is not what we what what I expected. It's it's more like a downgrade than a upgrade if you was out in in the community doing regular school.
Speaker 12
It's backwards. Yes. It's I've seen from my exurbment, I've seen I've seen this one dude, 17 years old, fresh, scrawny. He didn't have nothing going on. I'm talking about he must have got bullied or something into where he came in jail.
But he graduated high school not knowing how to read or do math. Hold on. Let's let's let's let's go backwards. He graduated high school not knowing how to read or do math.
Speaker 12
They shouldn't they shouldn't have let him graduate. He doing kindergarten packets, packets that that
Speaker 12
And and I'm in in our unit, me and him was in the same unit. We you feel me? So we already locked in. So he already knows who I'm talking about. So it's like it's kind of crazy how you got to help your own people inside your own unit so they can understand what's going on, what's the laws is, what they taking them through and what's the order of process for his mental.
Because if you're knowing what's going on, why are you still in the justice system? That's powerful.
Speaker 1
Thank you. To close out this panel, I just want to say you've all taught each of us something, something powerful and given us something to take away with. I just want to say a couple of things. Marcus, it's not your last time coming to Sacramento. We've got legislation this year and we need you to come testify and there's some funders in this room and I'm gonna jump you to make sure that he gets on a plane at some point to come and testify with me this year because they need to hear you inside the capital.
And so, we're gonna make that happen. I'm not gonna lie, I would have copped a shirt too, I don't know the brand. I got you. Cameron, when you make that transition stepping out in the suit yourself, let me know. Let me help you make that because it took me a long time to feel comfortable with it.
It was funny even coming here today. It's my committee and I was like, I tuck my chain? Do I not tuck my chain? You know what I mean? What everybody expect?
I'm 34 now. And so, I just want you to know it's a there's a lot of power in seeing yourself in ways that other people might not see you. And I think this entire room sees you in that power. Jazara, you didn't need no grace. You bodied that.
You told You told told the truth that we all needed to hear and you made it real and you connected it in a very grounding way that allows those of us who don't have that experience dealing with hold family separation in that way and documentation and all of those other struggles and the anxiety that comes with it, thank you for reminding us the intersectionality of the experiences that our young people are having. Kaylee, you remind me a lot of me. I got five younger siblings. There's only three legislators who know anything about the foster care system. You are a leader, an absolute leader.
Any way we can help you along that journey, your educational journey included, let us know. We want to be there for you. And, John John, keep fighting in all the ways that you're fighting. You know what I mean? You're going win some fights.
You're going lose some fights. But we need you to keep fighting. And thank you for reminding us the difference between mentorship and sponsorship and the ways that we can step up both as an example but in real tangible ways to help remove barriers, remove red tape and create opportunities. On behalf of this select committee, I want you all to know you just testified before the state of California. So, give it up for these young people one more time.
And, with that, we're going to bring up our final panel supporting boys and men of color multi sector stories from the field. Now welcoming up our third panel, we've got Eric Morrison Smith from the Alliance of Boys and Men of Color, Kyle Patterson from the Southwestern Carpenters Union, Jeffrey Wallace from Leaders Up, and Israel Villa from the California Alliance of Youth and Community Justice. Should we start with Mr. Morrison Smith? Not yet.
Speaker 16
How about now? Alright, there we go. And look, it's been a little bit of a long day. You know, we've been in LP, it's hot, so I'm gonna stick to my talking points. But first, just want to say, you know, chair, members of the select committee, deeply appreciate you all being here.
Many of y'all have been champions for the work that the alliance does, so deeply appreciate that. But my name is Eric Morrison Smith, and I serve as the executive director for the Alliance of Voice Men of Color. I appreciate it. Thank you. Which is a multiracial, multigenerational network of over 200 organizations working to advance race and gender justice across California.
But for my piece, I feel like there's not much more I need to add except for to summarize some of what we heard and talk about this issue that everybody across the country seems to be talking about, and that is the crisis of boys and men. You know, it seems like every week there's a new headline in the New York Times and in other major platforms talking about the issues that boys and men are facing, whether it be mental health challenges, suicidal ideation, disconnection from work and community, and of course, being sort of sucked into these right wing pipelines. But one of the things that I think all of us in this room know that these are not individual or moral failures, these are connected to structural issues that many people have already identified in the space today. You know, we're talking about poverty. We're talking about the over policing that is happening in our communities.
We're talking about housing instability and affordability. And of course, we're talking about schools that seem to continue investing more in police and punishment than actually supporting our students. And of course, systems of violence that have existed, quite frankly, since the foundation of this country, and have continued to persist for generations in our neighborhoods. But, we also know that if we want to know how to support boys and men of color, I mean, just look in the room right now, you know, we have people who have been doing this work for years and not just talking about the crisis that is happening with boys and men, but actually building the solutions. You know, this morning, you saw that we were in a juvenile facility where Hoops for Justice and other organizations have been supporting those young people away from these sort of carceral approaches that probation so often takes.
I mean, right now, we are sitting, as you heard, in a former jail for young people that has been turned into this beautiful space that is building youth leaders. Right? And assemblymember Carlisle, I know you asked like, where should we put the money? Justin didn't say it, I will. We should be putting it in YJC.
And, you know, the one more thing that I'll just add because I don't want to take up too much time but, you know, this is actually fifteen years since the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color got started which I think in itself is an accomplishment. And over those fifteen years, this network and the people in this room have collectively passed a 126 bills in the capital and have secured hundreds of millions of dollars for our communities for the types of approaches that we're talking about, and there's still so much more work to be done. And some of that work, just to sum it up really quickly, that includes the ending of willful defiance suspensions and expulsions, which many people in this room helped to champion. Assemblymember Mike Fong just you know, I know he had to leave, but, you know, that includes a $65,000,000 investment into apprenticeships that he is continuing to help build some of that work. So, you know, this network has been building a powerful ecosystem of movement lawyers, grassroots organizations, program providers.
We're about to hear from some business leaders, CYCJ, which is a statewide network that has helped to close youth prisons, you know, and so on. So, while the rest of the country is talking about the crisis of boys and men, folks in California have actually been building out the solutions. And the main thing that I want everybody in California to understand, governor Newsom who did an executive order on boys and men that doesn't really have much teeth, but I think that maybe the select committee can do something about that, is that the people in this room already have the answers. And it's really just time for the state to build the political well to continue to partner with us to advance solutions that transform policies and system for boys and men of color, our families, and our communities. Well, thank you so much for hearing us out.
Speaker 17
Yes, sir. Good evening, everyone. My name is Kyle Patterson, and I'm a native of Los Angeles, South LA, born and raised. I'm I'm I'm glad for the opportunity to be here this evening. And, man, funny how god works sometimes.
It's not funny. It's just, we don't understand it sometimes. This room that we're sitting in, I can remember it was, 1989. This is where I ended up coming right here. I was 12.
January, I turned in 1990, I turned 13, and that was my first time getting caught up for a robbery, me and my two cousins over there on 97th in Vermont. So as we were walking through today going on the tour, I automatically, said to myself, if the walls could talk, man, the stories that they tell, when you when you hear the saying of don't write your name on the walls or you're gonna be coming back, or when you, when you're sitting over there, that's where they send us when they, take our belt from us, and they send us back there. And then that's when you start trying to keep a straight face and not cry. Then they get you on that van and take you over to LP. I couldn't get off probation all the way until 1993.
Then 'ninety four comes along. Started getting a little bit more sophisticated. Single moms, raising nine of us, over there on Century, 97th in Vermont. Two bedroom apartment. Happened to kinda be the provider.
Step in. Shout out to moms because this is a trip what she can do with some flour, some baking soda, and some salt with some rice and beans. That's a meal right there. From that point right there, though, it turned around in 1994 going to Dorsey. You know, growing up in L.
A, you're in the 80s and 90s, you're looking for mentorship, guidance. And when you have folks that are doing the same thing bumping their heads, it's the blind leading the blind. I don't, regret any of my, mistakes or anything like that to where I I had to go through that. I understand now that god makes you have to sit in that seat to understand something to get to the next level. That's where we are today.
So I was going to Dorsey ninety four. I was 17 grade, right at the beginning of a a three strikes came out, and I got tried as an adult. Went away for six years, three months, and you have to go through some things. Like I said, he had to sit me down and put me on the shelf for a minute. I remember this little ant crawling up the wall up in Corcoran.
I ended up getting a thirty month SHU program straight. Then they sent me back to Salinas' senior. And it was one of those things where I seen that ant and I was like, I wish I was that ant. I dropped on my knees that moment and I gave my life to Christ, my lord and savior Jesus. From that point right there when I ended up paroling, there's a church right there on 106 in in in Hoover.
I came home and gave my life to god. From that point right there, I was going to the parole office, and there was a flyer on the wall for Century Freeway program, taught you how to get into any trade. Two weeks, it was based in Lenox. Two weeks into that program, you know, they taught you how to get into the trade and learn the tools and read a tape measure, but they gave you $1,345, set of tools for whatever trade that you got into. Two weeks into it, I've seen how easy it is to become a carpenter.
You can go and open solicitation, and, my job site was Vermont and Exposition, USC dorms. So, I'm bringing all that together right there to say I have a wife now and four children, and I am very proud to be here right now and proud of them. So I'm bringing that together to say this. Apprenticeship programs saved my life. The carpenters, Western States carpenters, thank God for that right there, that trade.
Didn't know nothing about construction. And once I seen that I'm I'm surrounded by new mentors, people showing me how to save money, how to raise my family and take trips, have health care, man. Thank you, father, for getting me here today to be able to talk to you all about the stories about how important labor standards and apprenticeship programs are when it comes to these kind of projects that that a young brother or sister walking past every day don't know how to get access to it. And when it's a labor standard and apprenticeship programs tied to it, it prioritizes the community first. So that's why I wanna, let you all know if there's something that California can do because you're doing it already, but just turning the screw on it, tightening it up a little bit more, making sure that if there's public dollars, it should funding a project, prioritize the residents first, especially here in South LA.
Opportunity lives here. And so with Career Connections, the little youngsters that was just up here, I heard the stories. I understand those stories right there. If it wasn't me gravitating to other friends going through those same situations, that's how it all starts. But if it was a apprenticeship program, I remember Dorsey had the auto mechanic class.
My instructor was also part time in moonlighting as a math teacher, but when he retired, the program retired. So, having career connections, construction programs with the amount of construction that's going to be hitting the streets of South L. A. And the Southern Just California period, with the World Cup and all of these things, we gotta start training the people now. Get them into schools now.
Plant that seed in their in their brain. One thing before I leave here, another way how god works in my life. I get a call one day a few years ago from some folks up in Sacramento saying, hey, would you like to be on the, California Prison Industry Authority Board? It's like, man, what is what do they do? Did some homework and research on it.
And here it is. I accepted the position, and I found myself back in the same rooms of Corcoran prison SHU program talking to people about creating work opportunities and jobs, connecting the construction to with the carpenters. That's my that's what we're here for. Every one of us has a purpose, and it's about helping the next person come up because that's what we're here to do is help people. Mental health, not having a job creates mental health too.
So with that right there, Western States Carpenters, with the help of our community partnerships, building those relationships, we build the people that build our communities. So, thank you. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 18
want to thank each of the assembly members for being here today. My name is Jeffrey Wallace. I'm the President and CEO of Leaders Up. And, we are an economic justice and youth power building organization that has connected over 60,000 young people to employment generating over $2,000,000,000 of economic return across the state of California. We know full center that young people can be assets and our assets to our economy.
I can't add much to what has been said before me, but what I would like to do is ensure that we understand the mathematics of what's happening right now. First of all, given the context that we live in the largest economy in the world, America, and the fourth largest economy in the world, California, dollars 4,000,000,000,000. The math doesn't make sense against the backdrop of we've done a great job of dismantling the juvenile justice system. Where we have failed our young people is generating and constructing an infrastructure of opportunity. Hope needs opportunity.
And now that we look across the state of California and to Los Angeles, California, there's over 130,000 young men of color between the ages of 16 and 30 that are currently not in school and not working. That's 130,000 young men of color that are not in school and not working. And, that's roughly costing our economy here in L. A. County $5,600,000,000 a year.
What a B? Not an M. That's over $109,000,000,000 in loss in economic value throughout their lifetime. When we hear the numbers around the cost of incarcerable systems at the individual level compared to the economic benefit, California has some reckoning to do as it relates to investing in its most valuable asset and that is human capital. That is not AI.
That is not big business. That is not politics. That are the individuals that put folks like yourselves in positions of power to fight for justice and transform systems. But the systems are not working together. It's a leaky ecosystem right now.
Let me paint the picture. Your graduation rate is shrinking by 19% by 2034. Only four of the top degrees 10 degrees that are produced by the CSUs and the UC systems actually align with the high growth sectors that keep this fourth largest economy running right now. One in every three residents in Los Angeles County make under $50,000 and pay more than 75% of that wage towards housing. That's extreme severe cost burden.
And in the backdrop of that ahead of us, 5,900,000 jobs will require some sort of post secondary education. Now, one of the things that we've done at Leaders Up that I'm most proud of, in alignment with the Alliance for Boys of Men of Color and numerous other partners that we've served with over a thousand young people across LA County, to ask them particularly what do they need in order to participate in the economy, experience economic mobility, and ultimately economic empowerment. Because our North Star is pretty simple. We want young people to make the rules, set those rules so they can earn learn, earn, and build a life that flourishes and lasts. The reality is this, young people are saying now that stability needs to be the on ramp.
The fight for 15 is over. We need at least $30.30 dollars an hour in order to survive when you're living in Los Angeles County and a studio apartment is $1,700 a month. Let's just do the math. Thirty hours $30 an hour, forty hours a week, a 100 I mean, 1,200 a week. We're talking about $4,800 a week, and you're spending more than half of that on housing.
How do we expect folks to get ahead? How do we expect the young people that we just heard from to actually have the ability to not just survive but thrive and flourish? And, the backdrop is we're living in the fourth largest economy in the world. Young people are saying that we need one door, many pathways. So many young people spend time searching for programs, as we heard from heard from them today, that they spend more time navigating the systems instead of being served by these systems.
We live in the creative capital of the world. Why can't we create a system that ensures that young people can access one point to to opportunities of internships, mentorships, apprenticeships, skill training, career pathways. Again, it's in California's best interest to make this happen. Social capital needs to be an infrastructure. But, all of the Fortune 500 companies in this this in this state, we should be able to churn out mentors that reflect the communities that these companies work in because each of these companies have employee resource groups.
They're not being held accountable. They're not paying taxes either. So, at least they could do is be great corporate citizens. We're also thinking about how young people are saying that learning needs to lead to livelihoods. You just heard me say earlier, one of the most expensive state education systems in the country is only producing four of the top 10 degrees necessary to keep this economy afloat.
And last but not least, as we heard from young people today, we gotta put young people in positions of power. I sit on the LA County Workforce Development Board. I champion the youth, committee to be established to oversee the $18,000,000 that are being invested in workforce programs across that county. The first thing that I did was ensure that five young people representing each Supervisual District was represented on that commission. Because those closest to the problems are the folks that should be at the table creating the solutions.
I'll leave you with the words of one of our elders in the spirit of the last one of the last days of Black History Month from Angela Davis. She said, abolition is about presence, not absence. It's about building life affirming institutions. So, as we have dismantled again the juvenile justice system and sit in the presence of the results of that, I ask each of you, how are we designing systems of opportunity and infrastructure of hope? Thank you for your time.
Speaker 13
Can you hear me now? No. It's time for my back. Can you hear me? Yes, sir.
Oh, man. I was starting to worry. I I drove almost six hours to get down here because this isn't oh, this is important to me. I'm tired. I'm very tired.
And first and foremost, I wanna Just just so you know get into this.
Speaker 13
right? I know that. That's why I think you all know me. A lot of folks know me. I usually come from my heart because it's a good one, and I've been following, and it's gotten me this far.
Speaker 13
I actually wrote them things down because I got too much to say and not enough time. So I'm gonna read it. I put, my name is is oh, also, brother, we have not dismantled shit. Nothing yet, brother. We've done some good work.
We're we barely scratched the surface. School to prison pipeline is running real smooth, but we're working real hard to get there. But my name is Israel Salazar Villa. I represent the California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice. We are an alliance of oh, judge.
We just had a staff re oh, fifty fifty CBOs in 24 counties and growing and with a long list of, potentials, and we will we will be growing. We're in 24 counties. I'm a survivor of the school to prison pipeline have been home now nearly twelve years using my lived experience to mentor youth and to fight the racist systems that nearly destroyed my life. Before I begin, I wanna I wanna honor some ancestors and loved ones of mine and of ours starting with mister James Bell, mister Brandon Harrison from Stockton, father's and family, and, young Brian Diaz. I didn't get a chance to meet Brian Diaz, but I said it in another public comment.
I dedicate my work this year to young Brian Diaz. And, you know, I would say, I also wanna acknowledge the amazing young folks that y'all visited in Los Padrinos. They were in some historic times even though there's so much ugliness around us. Man, we ain't stopping and we ain't going backwards. And it's historic.
That's why I'm here. I'm tired. I shoulda slept, but I drove down here. And we wanna acknowledge those young folks and let them know we're behind you, baby boys. We got you.
We're gonna fight hard, and we're gonna win like we've been. My first public it's interesting. I came home almost twelve years ago, and with less than a month of getting that milpa where I first started, I came to one of these in my hometown of Salinas, the heart of the salad bowl. And it was my first speaking engagement at NA. I was nervous, fresh out the feds, and I never envisioned myself being in any kind of these spaces.
I lived most of my life accepting a death penalty or a life sentence. And I said something I remember about I was one of those and many that slipped by the craps, but through the cracks. But I've learned a lot since I've been home. Hey. We ain't slipping through no cracks.
It's all by design. You know? Over the past decade of organizing and mobilizing, I've learned that calling young people slipping through the cracks is a profound understatement. The pipeline is an engineered system that funnels children from schools into cages, and many system actors benefit from its maintenance. Because of CAYCJ and a lot of our comrades and allies, California has made much important progress in youth justice, but the school to prison pipeline remains remains a well oiled machine.
Last year was a difficult one for youth justice legislation, and this year, we're seeing even more resistance. Instead of defending our gains, too many members are retreating and prioritizing politics and optics over children's lives. I'm not gonna put the member staff on blast, but one member staff said, when asked if would you like me to forward some data and research? I'm not an expert, but we got experts. No.
So it don't matter. No. Thank you for at least being honest. I respect you for that. For me and for us, we refuse to go backwards.
All youth are sacred. Can I can we say that? All youth are sacred? All youth are sacred. Regardless of party lines or politics, I don't care about nothing.
Nothing but our kids and our future and future generations. They deserve love, dignity, support, and connection to community. If LA probation was a person, they would be Donald Trump. They gaslight, they lie, they cheat, have stolen, and some of them touch kids. Sexual abuse class action claims, unlawful pepper spray use, smuggling deadly contraband into facilities, not just LA, in multiple counties orchestrating fights just like they did when I was a kid in the early nineties and to my big homies before us.
Right? And most painfully responsibility for the death of Brian Diaz. These are child abusers who will protect our children. Probation must be audited and downsized to meet the current population under their so called care. The infrastructure no longer matches youth incarceration rates and was never created to support or help our community needs.
We have historic lows in youth incarceration but historic highs in per capita incarceration costs. A contradiction, the board of supervisors, BSEC, d DOJ legislators must address without prejudice or favor. At this point in my opinion, you are all enablers. I believe we need to give OYCR the thief and the authority that was compromised in the s b eight two three fight. Most states have state level oversight body, and it is clear that probation absolutely needs accountability in the form of transparency and a legit state level oversight because the BSCC in it and and the OICR in it yet.
We need investment in prevention and intervention. Incredible messengers like ourselves. The youngsters listen to us. Now, we ain't going to save them all, but we're to save lives. We're doing it.
We're doing it. We're interrupting that pipeline. Less restrictive programs. We fought hard to get that. We've got to change it from May to you've got to send the kids.
You've got to free our kids, let them go with what's going to actually work and what's going to help them. It's community based, less restrictive programs, alternatives to incarceration. Finally, oh no, Youth Justice Reimagine. The solutions are here. I will stop right there, but I'm going to say this.
Finally, community power is essential. You know what I mean? Organizing, mobilizing, and we need to encourage our people to run for office. We need new, accountable leadership from the bottom to the top in order to protect our children and to dismantle the school to prison pipeline. I'm coming from Misalinas where we don't beat around the bush.
We trim it, baby. You know? And, we need to prioritize and protect our children. We need to prioritize and protect our children. As all youth are sacred.
We do not want to reform these racist systems. We wanna transform, and we're gonna shut them down.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that powerful close. I think that was the perfect way to close these three panels. Israel, thank you.
And to all of you men that are here speaking to Hal, you're doing your best to interrupt and disrupt that school to prison pipeline for our youth. And Kyle earlier, first of all, thank you for telling your story. And earlier today when we were talking to some of the young people that are in the juvenile facility, When we asked, hey, what we were asking questions, what else would you need? A number of them said they want more trades inside there while they're still in there so that when they get out they already have some skills. And a number of them said that, I agree.
I know that there are one off programs here and there but we got to get it in there with the youth and thank you for not just understanding it but doing that. So, appreciate that. And the one last thing I'll say with Mr. Wallace because I represent San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, the most extreme wealth inequality maybe in the world but certainly in the country. And for years, ever since I was on city council to now, I will be in these rooms with tech leaders and this, that, and to their face will tell them what you already are saying.
They're not hiring our people in San Jose, in East San Jose with such a huge Latino community in the shadows of these trillion dollar companies and they're not hiring them. And they make the excuse that oh there's not a hiring pool. They've had thirty, forty years to create the hiring pool and I'll tell you this, when I was first running for city council, represent South San Jose where the former West Coast headquarters of IBM used to be. I used to knock on doors, and I would knock on doors of countless retired black men who are engineers black engineers, retired. Countless numbers.
They went and look at the next generation engineers, no more. It's intentional. It was intentional. It continues to be intentional. Whenever we do legislation asking for these corporations to tell us what their numbers are on each job category, how many men, how many women, race, they they fight it and block it every time.
And so, do need the political will to hold Silicon Valley and hold these corporations accountable because it has been an intentional effort. When you go to those these beautiful corporate headquarters, if you see brown or black faces, they're usually in
Speaker 4
cafeterias or security guards or janitors. They should be the engineers. They should be in the corporate boardrooms, but they've intentionally been left out even though they used to be in those rooms. And so, thank you for the work you're doing. I just wanted to mention that because that's my backyard.
They don't invite me anymore to speak. I used to get invited all the time, but I just want to mention that because they don't need to invite me. We need to come to them and force the issue. So, I'll end by saying my last thing I'm going to say today, thank you to our chair for bringing this Select Committee hearing here in this space. I'm so grateful to the work that our chair does and grateful to everyone that spoke today and everyone here in community.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
It's been an incredibly long day for the members of the Select Committee and for the organizers and the youth who have been with us all day. As I said, we were in LP this morning, went to multiple units. We had lunch at Simply Wholesome. We broke down the system. We talked about change.
We talked about strategies for change. And it's been an inspiring and empowering day. Thank you, Israel, for bringing Jimmy Bell into the space and all the ones that we've lost in this movement and in this work who mentored and brought so many of us up. Whenever I'm in a space like this talking about our young people, it reminds me of when I was 12 years old. I failed out of middle school.
You know those kids in the class who didn't get the one point o and don't get to do the ceremony? I was one of those kids. I got into seven fights. I got suspended many times. And and I think back to those days, and it's it's interesting now because I won't put her on blast but a little sister somebody I got into a fight with in middle school is here with me today.
We've passed 12 pieces of legislation since and I think about the difference between me ending up in a state prison and me ending up in the state legislature. And I think that difference is the organizers in this room. I think that difference is people who believe in hope and redemption and first chances and second chances. I think it's the difference is people who believe that systems of harm have no function in society and systems of care and opportunity are the only things we should be investing in. I'm proud to bring this select committee back this session.
This is the first hearing of the select committee, but it will not be the last this year or in the coming years. So please stay engaged, stay active. Thank you to all of the young people who have not just uplifted their voices today, but really inspired legislation and ideas. There are two pieces of legislation that came directly from the young boys in LP. If your organization is not supporting them and you don't know what they are, please tap in with somebody who does because change doesn't happen on its own.
It takes all of us and even then it still isn't a promise, but we are gonna fight every day to continue to move the needle. And with that, this closes the select committee hearing. Thank you all.
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