by TChris

TalkLeft has reported on the sad state of affairs at the California Youth Authority, including the practice of caging children and ignoring their mental health problems. Yesterday was a statewide day of protest concerning juvenile justice in California. Protestors in Watsonville, Santa Cruz, and other parts of the state held a candlelight vigil to call attention to the deplorable conditions for offenders detained in California Youth Authority jails.

In central California, protestors focused on another aspect of youth corrections: the disproportionate tendency to incarcerate Latino children.

In recent years, the state has incarcerated a remarkable percentage of Lindsay's young people, a fact that is little known outside the town's Latino migrant-family community, said vigil organizer Victor Cervantes.

The protest focused attention on the state's warped priorities.

In Central Valley communities it's perceived California is choosing to spend to build prisons and to lock up Latino youth instead of spending any money on much-needed social programs and job creation to assist families of immigrants.

Those attending a candlelight vigil in Lindsay agreed that California should stop using the prison industry as a job creation program, and should focus instead on root causes of crime, including poverty, discrimination, and a lack of resources for the mentally ill.