ACLU Sues Riverside County Over Youth Rights

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA -- The ACLU on Monday announced a lawsuit against Riverside County, claiming local officials have been criminalizing its young residents over school discipline issues or poor grades. The group said the county is targeting the children because they believe they are at-risk of "becoming delinquent and thus should be treated as criminals."

The county program being targeted in the lawsuit is the Youth Accountability Team, whose mission is "to provide a collaborative and integrated multi-agency approach to rapid and effective intervention with at-risk youth and less serious juvenile offenders by providing necessary services to youth and their families," according to the county's website.

However, the ACLU claims the program is "feeding kids in to the school-to-prison pipeline."

"Diversion programs, particularly community-based ones, can serve as positive alternatives to placing juveniles in detention facilities," the group said in a press release. "However, when these programs take the place of school- and community-based interventions for non-delinquent behavior, they do more harm than good. What’s more, they can violate a child’s constitutional rights along the way."

The group said it is suing the county to "affirm the rights of children" in the region.

A spokesman for the Riverside County's Probation Department, which oversees the Youth Accountability Team, said it has not been served with the lawsuit. He said the county will address the allegations when the lawsuit is served.

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