By Betty Márquez Rosales, Photo: Josie Lepe, EdSource, April 28, 2022
Judge Katherine Lucero is tasked with leading California’s massive transformation of its juvenile justice system by June 2023, a change prompted by the signing of Senate Bill 823 in 2020. The state’s Division of Juvenile Justice will effectively shut down, and any youth who would have previously been sent to one of its four facilities will now be placed in juvenile facilities within their own counties. There are about 600 young men and women currently housed across the state’s four facilities.
Late last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Lucero as the director of the new Office of Youth and Community Restoration, which was created by SB 823. Lucero is the daughter of farmworkers who has experience as a juvenile dependency court commissioner and most recently as Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge for 20 years. This is a full-time position that pays $194,868 a year. The new office is headquartered in Sacramento.
Known as OYCR, the office is housed within California’s Health and Human Services Agency, rather than the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a move that signals its new goals and emphasis on taking a more holistic approach to rehabilitating the youth in its custody.
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