FAILURE AFTER FARRELL - VIOLENCE AND INADEQUATE MENTAL HEALTH CARE IN CALIFORNIA’S DIVISION OF JUVENILE JUSTICE

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Margaret

Research report analyzing post–Farrell v. Kernan conditions in California’s Division of Juvenile Justice, focusing on violence and mental health care. Traces how historic abuse, suicides, and systemic violence led to the Farrell lawsuit and a 2004 consent decree requiring multiple remedial plans. Even after court dismissal in February 2016, monitoring data show continued gang culture, unsafe and traumatic conditions, and insufficient evidence-based programming and therapeutic mental health services. The report reviews implementation of the remaining Safety and Welfare and Mental Health plans.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

An Overview of DJJ

FAILURE AFTER FARRELL: VIOLENCE AND INADEQUATE MENTAL HEALTH CARE IN CALIFORNIA’S DIVISION OF JUVENILE JUSTICE Nisha Ajmani, Esq., Sentencing Service Program Manager Erica Webster, Communications and Policy Analyst Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice August 2016 Research Report Introduction From its inception in 1891 to present day, California’s state youth corrections system has been mired in violence and abuse. In 1914, IQ testing and eugenics at state juvenile facilities resulted in the forced sterilization of poor, primarily non-white youth. In 1939, the suspicious suicide of a 13-year-old boy, the maltreatment of Latino youth, and systemic violence prompted a statewide investigation. In the 1960s, the California Youth Authority’s (CYA) own internal studies concluded that their facilities bred violence and failed to keep youth safe (Macallair, 2015) . In 2003, after the media and juvenile justice advocates exposed decades of physical and sexual abuse, dangerous working conditions for staff, capitulation to gangs, and multiple youth suicides, the Prison Law Office (PLO) sued the CYA, which was renamed to the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) in 2005 (CJCJ, 2013) . This lawsuit, Farrell v. Kernan 1 (“the Farrell lawsuit”), forced DJJ to improve conditions within its facilities. As a result of Farrell, in 2004, the Alameda County Superior Court of California issued a consent decree that required DJJ to implement six remedial plans2 overhauling its safety, health, mental health treatment, sex behavior treatment, disabilities services, and education systems. After twelve years of oversight, in February 2016, the court released DJJ from the lawsuit, stating that it had satisfied a majority of the consent decree’s mandates, though acknowledging two remedial plans had not yet been fully implemented. Despite the dismissal, data show that DJJ is far from reformed: violence, gang culture, and poor mental healthcare are continuing problems. Analyses of court documents monitoring Farrell’s two remaining remedial plans—the Safety and Welfare Remedial Plan and the Mental Health Remedial Plan—reveal that DJJ continues to be a dangerous and traumatic place that fails to provide adequate mental health treatment, therapeutic services, and evidence-based programming for California’s young people. Because the court ended its oversight of the additional remedial plans in or before 2013, in order to analyze more recent trends at DJJ prior to the dismissal of the Farrell lawsuit, this report can only examine the implementation of the safety and mental health reforms. However, institutional violence and lack of access to mental health care affect multiple aspects of daily life at DJJ and maybe indicative of other problems. An Overview of DJJ The state youth corrections system falls under the jurisdiction of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) . In 1996, DJJ consisted of 11 facilities that confined approximately 10,000 youth (Krisberg, et al. , 2010) . As a result of juvenile justice realignment in 20073 and a 30-year decline in youth crime, DJJ now houses about 700youth in three correctional facilities and one fire camp as of May 1 Originally filed as Farrell v. Harper, Case No. RG 03079344 (now Farrell v. Kernan). 2 These include the Education Remedial Plan, the Health Care Remedial Plan, the Mental Health Remedial Plan, the Safety and Welfare Remedial Plan, the Sex Behavior Treatment Program Remedial Plan, and the Wards with Disabilities Remedial Plan. 3 Senate Bill (SB) 81 enacted “juvenile justice realignment” in 2007, which limited the offenses for which counties could commit youth to DJJ facilities. This law was chaptered in response to overcrowding in DJJ facilities, and incentivized counties to innovate youth programming at the local level and reduce reliance on the state youth corrections system. 2016 (CJCJ, 2015; CDCR, 2016a) .4 The annual ex

FAQs

What is the Farrell lawsuit, and why is it central to this report?

The Farrell lawsuit, Farrell v. Kernan, forced improvements in the Division of Juvenile Justice after decades of abuse. A 2004 consent decree required DJJ to implement multiple remedial plans, including safety and mental health measures.

What did the court decide in February 2016 regarding DJJ?

In February 2016, the court released DJJ from the lawsuit, stating it had satisfied most mandates. The decision acknowledged that two remedial plans had not yet been fully implemented.

Which reforms does the report analyze after the dismissal?

Because the court ended oversight of additional remedial plans by or before 2013, the report examines only the implementation of the Safety and Welfare Remedial Plan and the Mental Health Remedial Plan.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Margaret