By Delaney Smith, Santa Barbara Independent, February 5, 2020 As part of Santa Barbara County’s overhaul of its criminal justice system, the Board of Supervisors accepted a nearly $6 million grant Tuesday to fund a treatment program for minor offenders suffering from drug addiction or mental illness in an effort to divert them from jail. “Basically what it means is we are taking the most vulnerable individuals who suffer from substance-abuse and mental-health issues — who often end up in our...

In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.