Catherine Crump, Kate Weisburd and Christina Koningisor write for The Sacramento Bee, July 20, 2017
Electronic monitoring may worsen the very problems that juvenile courts try to remedy. Rather than further rehabilitation, it often leads to jail for technical rule violations and traps young people in the system longer.
Kate Weisburd quoted by Capital Public Radio, July 12, 2017
“We were repeatedly seeing our clients really struggling on electronic monitoring and then they end up back in jail,” says Kate Weisburd.
Catherine Crump and Kate Weisburd quoted by The Associated Press, July 12, 2017
“People in one county didn’t even know what the county next door’s policies were,” said Catherine Crump, an assistant clinical professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Some counties require a parent be home at all times, that schedules be approved weeks in advance, or that landline phones be set up in the home, which could prove to be a hurdle for a child from a poorer home, said Kate Weisburd, a supervising attorney at the East Bay Community Law Center.
Kate Weisburd quoted by Youth Radio, Nov. 15, 2016
“It almost felt like you were at the checkout line at Target. And you were getting this receipt for how much money you owed.” Weisburd, who primarily represents young people in Alameda County, Calif., said teens and their families would end up with piles of bills they didn’t expect, and since the majority of her clients are low income, the impact was huge.
Stephanie Campos-Bui and Kate Weisburd quoted in Daily Journal (registration required), July 15, 2016
“On top of the harm to families, these fees often result in little or no financial gain to local jurisdictions,” said Stephanie Campos-Bui.
“This repeal is a victory for families and young people throughout Alameda County,” Weisburd said. “This punitive debt has no place in the juvenile system. It undermines family stability at a time when stability is needed most.”
Kate Weisburd writes for East Bay Times, May 19, 2016
Three pending bills in Sacramento will expand the ability of schools to push kids out of school and irreparably disrupt their education. … These bills significantly widen the school to a prison pipeline. Rather than address the root cause of the problems, these bills further criminalize and exclude students, especially students of color.
Stephanie Campos-Bui and Kate Weisburd quoted in Daily Journal (registration required) April 8, 2016
“We’re very happy that the board took action,” said Stephanie Campos-Bui, clinical teaching fellow at the Berkeley clinic. Campos-Bui presented research to the county board’s public protection committee showing that Alameda County has been spending approximately $250,000 per year on collection agency fees, collections employees, and county hearing officers in its attempts to recoup $250,000 worth of administrative fees from often low-income families, resulting in a negligible revenue stream for the county.
“It’s so gratifying for those us who represent juveniles in court to see one of the many daily injustices we see being changed on a systemic level in such a positive way,” Weisburd said
Franklin Zimring and Kate Weisburd quoted in Pacific Standard, Dec. 15, 2015
Beyond the cyclical criminalization that the device provokes, its rules and circumstances clash with the infrastructure of the teenage mind. “Expecting the experience-based ability to resist impulses … to be fully formed prior to age 18 or 19 would seem on present evidence to be wishful thinking,” says Berkeley law professor Frank Zimring.
Weisburd recommends community-based programming. “In Oakland there were Evening Reporting Centers at local non-profits,” she says, “the youth were kept busy, off the streets, got good programming, and there was no need at all for electronic monitoring.”
Kate Weisburd and Stephanie Campos-Bui interviewed by Daily Journal, Dec. 8, 2015
Campos-Bui said that in many counties, the publicly available information on collections, waivers, and fee structures is “often a little muddy… There’s a lot of confusion, a lot of information not being collected; it’s a whole mess.”
“It’s high pain for low gain,” Weisburd said. “We’re questioning whether this is an effective policy – these fees directly undermine family stability in a time when it’s needed most.”
Kate Weisburd writes for the Huffington Post, Politics blog, April 9, 2014
When young people graduate from the juvenile justice system, they have, by any reasonable measure, repaid their debt to society. But one debt is not easily repaid: the hundreds and even thousands of dollars in fines, fees and restitution that young people and their families owe as a result of their cases.