Finally, a much-needed reform is coming for California’s juvenile prison system.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to close down the state’s dilapidated youth prison system acknowledges the high cost of youth imprisonment and is a positive step toward public health and racial equity. It also leaves counties across California with an important next step: They must now develop a local plan and submit it before the state stops accepting young people into its Division of Juvenile Justice next July.

Starting next year, justice-involved young people will serve time closer to their homes, families and communities. The governor’s plan includes establishing an Office of Youth and Community Restoration. It will try to ensure consistent standards across the state. And it will all fall under the state’s Health and Human Services Agency, not the Department of Corrections. That’s a good sign.

There’ll be folks from the justice system. But also, people from social services and mental health. And crucially, the governor has called for such groups to include no fewer than three community members with experience providing community-based youth services. That includes youth justice advocates and people with direct experience in the juvenile justice system.

It is great to know that people who have had experience with the horrors of the old system will be at the table on the county level, deciding how to improve things. The horrors of California’s Department of Juvenile Justice are well documented. From forcing young people to stand in wire cages for their schooling to failing to prevent – or even adequately investigate – routine abuse and assault, the department’s closure ends a sad chapter in the state’s history.

As of next year, each county gets to draw up a plan for how to spend the state’s money. Counties must submit plans to the state about how they’re going to provide rehabilitative housing and supervision services for young people. And the Monterey County Board of Supervisors gets to choose who’ll be at the table for those conversations.

Let’s be sure we write a better history this time around.

We need to do this with a view toward helping young people heal and integrate better into society. We know a young person with involvement in the justice system is more than their worst decision.

The county must move quickly to convene the committee that decides how to invest in our young people, to ensure we get our fair share of the state’s allocation. Let’s be sure the people leading the process are inclusive, open to a new way of doing things, and want to give our young people options. Otherwise, we risk simply replicating a statewide failure at the local level.

We must develop a plan that includes funding for community, school and health-based service providers. We must reimagine county probation departments and replicate the office of youth and community restoration at a county level.

Monterey County can do better than the state has over many years – if we do the work.

CESAR LARA is policy and programs director at MILPA.