By the Vera Institute of Justice and Young Women’s Freedom Center

This report is the product of a two-year, multidisciplinary, mixed methods study by Young Women’s Freedom Center (YWFC) and the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera). The work leading to this report was a community-based research project that included outreach, quantitative data collection, collaborative analysis, and original qualitative data collection in the form of interviews with 50 system-involved women, girls, and gender-expansive young people across the state. The report offers policymakers, funders, advocates, and communities the data and evidence they need to understand the scope of girls’ incarceration in California. The report › provides background on the history and context of girls’ incarceration, › lays out the key findings from quantitative and qualitative analyses, and › provides a roadmap of how communities and state leaders can work together to end the incarceration and criminalization of girls and gender-expansive youth. This analysis shows that it is possible for every county in California to end girls’ incarceration with bold and decisive action.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2024. 89p.