Yesterday, youth activists rallied outside the Alameda County Administration Building in Oakland, calling on the county's Board of Supervisors to ban pepper spray inside its juvenile detention facilities and replace it with trauma-informed de-escalation tactics. The demonstrators argued that the chemical agent does the opposite of what officials claim it does, leaving kids in custody hurt rather than protected.
According to KTVU, the rally was organized by Urban Peace Movement, whose youth leaders addressed county officials directly outside the building. Narayan, identified as a young man and member of the group, said pepper spray has "the opposite effect of protecting the community and serving youth." He added that children inside juvenile hall describe the spray as causing collapsing lungs, burning faces, and a total loss of bodily control.
Alameda's Company in a Shrinking Club
Alameda is now one of just three Bay Area counties that still allow the practice, according to The Oaklandside. Contra Costa and Sonoma round out that trio, while San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Marin, Napa, and Solano counties have all banned pepper spray inside their juvenile halls. Local youth advocates point to those neighboring counties as proof that secure facilities can run without chemical agents.
The pattern extends well beyond the Bay Area. California is one of only five states that let juvenile detention officers carry chemical spray on their person at all times, even though roughly 90 percent of state-run youth facilities nationwide prohibit guards from carrying it, per KQED. Several other states maintain outright bans or strict limits on chemical agents in juvenile detention centers, KTVU reported.
County Stays Quiet While Officers Defend the Spray
Alameda County did not immediately return KTVU's request for comment on the rally or the proposed ban. Narayan said county officials maintain that pepper spray protects the community and serves the youth in custody, reasoning he called backward given what he says kids go through during deployments.
The strongest institutional pushback against a ban has come from officers themselves. The State Coalition of Probation Organizations, which represents line staff across more than 40 California counties, formally urged state regulators in 2023 to reject pepper spray bans, arguing chemical agents are an essential non-lethal tool for protecting understaffed officers from violent assaults, according to the State Coalition of Probation Organizations. Historical department records show Alameda County guards deployed pepper spray 147 times in a single year, with county officials at the time linking those use-of-force incidents to chronic staffing shortages and heavy overtime, per KQED.
Sacramento's Repeated Failures to Ban the Practice
Statewide bans have stumbled in Sacramento more than once. A 2022 measure aimed at curbing the practice died before reaching the state Senate, KTVU reported, and California has yet to enact similar statewide restrictions. Two earlier bills, Assembly Bill 2010 in 2018 and Assembly Bill 1165 in 2021, also failed to pass the Legislature after running into opposition from law enforcement groups, according to Capitol Weekly. Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations still lets local juvenile facilities use chemical agents despite petitions from more than two dozen advocacy groups urging a statewide ban.
Disproportionate Harm and L.A.'s Cautionary Tale
The consequences fall hardest on some of the most vulnerable kids in custody. A 2023 joint investigation by Disability Rights California and Disability Rights Advocates found that incarcerated youth with behavioral and mental health disabilities are disproportionately subjected to pepper spray in California's juvenile facilities, leading to state non-compliance citations in counties such as Kings County, according to Disability Rights California. State inspections corroborated that excessive pepper spray use violated programming standards, the groups found.
Los Angeles County shows how hard it can be to follow through on a ban once it's approved. Its Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in February 2019 to phase out pepper spray in juvenile facilities by late 2020, but the rollout stalled for years amid staffing shortages and union opposition, according to the Los Angeles Times. Supervisors there passed a second, more targeted ban in 2022 after deployments spiked again. Hoodline has previously reported on the fallout from that struggle in chaos at Nidorf juvenile hall, where youth transfers and staffing shortfalls ignited violence tied to pepper spray.
Camp Sweeney Already Shows It Can Be Done
Advocates say Alameda County doesn't have to look outside its own borders for a model. Under the state's SB 823 realignment, which closed state youth prisons and shifted higher-needs youth into county-level care, community advisory panels called on the county's own probation agency to extend Camp Sweeney's existing zero-pepper-spray policy across all local juvenile programs, according to the Alameda County Probation Department. Camp Sweeney is an open-residential county youth camp that already operates without chemical agents.
A Year-Long Campaign Culminates Outside County Hall
Tuesday's rally capped more than a year of organizing under Urban Peace Movement's Stop Pepper Spraying Our Kids campaign, which included a town hall at Oakstop in June 2025 and a Justice Winter House gathering at the Black Panther Party Museum in December 2025, according to The Oaklandside. Youth organizers contend the Board of Supervisors already has the policy authority to mandate non-chemical de-escalation tactics without waiting on state lawmakers.
The debate arrives amid wider scrutiny of Alameda County's juvenile system. Hoodline reported last month on a bombshell sex abuse lawsuit detailing misconduct allegations and oversight failures inside Alameda County Juvenile Hall and Camp Sweeney. For now, activists say they'll keep pressing supervisors until the county follows the rest of the Bay Area's lead.
