Keep The Numbers Low: Reducing Youth Confinement in the Wake of COVID-19: One State’s Journey to Limit Youth Confinement

In 2019, Colorado passed SB 19-108, which included new provisions restricting the use of detention, requiring detention screening and detention screening teams, and changes in detention hearings. In this episode, our host speaks with Magistrate Lisa Gomez from Denver, Colorado about the new statute and what it means for her jurisdiction and the youth that they serve.

For a tool that youth confinement decisionmakers can use to keep youth confinement numbers low, download the Checklist for Juvenile Confinement Decisions During and After COVID-19.

Guest Bio:

Magistrate Gomez graduated with a degree in criminal justice from Metropolitan State University of Denver.  She attended law school at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.  After working as a guardian ad litem and respondent parent counsel for Denver County, she joined the bench as a Denver Juvenile Court Magistrate in 2015.  Magistrate Gomez is the presiding Magistrate over both the Youth and Family Treatment Court as well as Denver’s Juvenile Handgun Intervention Program, creating pathways through community partnerships for high risk and high need kids to develop and find success outside of Justice involvement.