Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility: innovation, one program at a time
By Lee Seale, Chief Probation Officer, Sacramento County Probation Department
May 22, 2014
In the last five years, Sacramento County’s juvenile hall in California has undergone a significant culture change, overcoming claims of excessive force and over-reliance on room confinement. With an emphasis on rehabilitation and positive interventions, our juvenile hall now strives to provide specialized programming to better prepare youth to return to their families and reintegrate into society. It has become a national model of innovative practices.
In 2013, the paradigm shift within the juvenile hall culminated in Sacramento County Probation Department receiving the Barbara Allen-Hagen Award from Performance-Based Standards for the second time. The department’s juvenile hall received the award in the short-term detention center category.
