Oakland based non-profit Urban Peace Movement demonstrated Tuesday in front of the Alameda County Administration Building to demand the end of pepper spray use in the county's juvenile hall.
"This is a bottle of pepper spray. It's legal in Alameda County Juvenile Detention Centers but banned round the bay," said a youth activist engaging street theater. She continued, "spray in heat, fire in the lungs, and your eyes start to bleed."
Alameda County is one of two Bay Area counties that currently uses pepper spray in its juvenile hall. County data shows youth who are incarcerated are as young as 14. Around 70% of those in juvenile hall are Black.
Nicole Lee is the founding executive director of Urban Peace Movement. She says the use of oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray, comes with grave costs.
"The biggest cost is really the harm that it's doing, the trauma that it's doing to young people," said Lee. "It creates instances in which both young people and the staff get hurt or injured, and then they have to go out on medical leave and overtime," she added.
In 2023, the Alameda County’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission issued a report that stated, “reliance on OC Spray is a sign that staff are under-trained and ineffective as it pertains to relationship building and crisis response.”
In 2025, the county’s probation department reported six use of force incidents involving the use of pepper spray in juvenile detention.
Across the US, 35 states have banned the use of pepper spray in their juvenile detention facilities. In California, several counties including: San Francisco, Marin, and Santa Cruz have also banned pepper spray in their juvenile halls.
Camp Sweeney, a minimum security residential facility for incarcerated youth in San Leandro, already limits its use of pepper spray. In a recent report they highlighted a transition towards trauma-informed strategies for de-escalation.
KALW reached out to several staffers and multiple supervisors of Alameda County for comment but none responded.
