It looks like California Gov. Brown has had a change of heart about the fate of his state’s youthful offenders.
Brown has been busy slashing funds left and right as he attempts to get a handle on the state’s $15.7 billion budget shortfall, and for a while it looked like the Division of Juvenile Justice (formerly the California Youth Authority) was not long for this world. His proposed elimination of the agency elicited a hue and cry from the correctional officers’ union, various district attorneys and several law enforcement groups.
Despite the DJJ currently being under court oversight due to claims of systemic abuse and mistreatment of juvenile offenders, most groups agree that it has improved drastically from its sorry state in the 1990s. In those days roughly 10,000 kids were incarcerated there; today they number just over 1,000. Conditions and circumstances, while still often horrible, have also gotten better in that time.
So where do things stand if the DJJ has survived the chopping block? KKPC 89.3 brings us a look:
Under Brown’s revised proposal, juvenile parole operations will still be phased to county responsibility over the next two years. Furthermore, the jurisdictional age of the DJJ will go down to 23 from 25–meaning wards (other than those awaiting transfer to adult prison) will automatically be released from custody on their 23rd rather than 25th birthday.
The news was greeted with relief in numerous quarters:
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Spokesman Bill Sessa says the governor’s reversal was for good cause.
‘The youth we are serving, some of them, are from counties that don’t have treatment programs for violent youth,’ he says. Moreover, Sessa says the DJJ has made great strides in streamlining its budget, closing some facilities and laying off headquarters staff. ‘We’re focusing on serving our youth,’ he says.
Department of Finance Spokesman H.D. Palmer adds that counties are already dealing with adult prison realignment. ‘And we didn’t want to overburden that process, knowing that there’s a transition period we’re going through right now,’ he says.
In Los Angeles County, which has about 300 juveniles in the state system, more than any other county, Chief Probation Officer Jerry Powers calls Brown’s change of heart ‘great news.’
Palmer’s observation on the overburdened state of the system is one that particularly resonates. Many of the counties involved do not have separate facilities for youth, a problem that is made far worse if the adult population is in chaos when the kids arrive.
While we advocate for rehabilitation over incarceration, there is a small percentage of youth offenders, often the excessively violent ones, who need to be put behind bars . We simply note that the overwhelming majority of youth offenders currently incarcerated can benefit from other programs, rather than simply being locked up.
“Often the ones going to DJJ are the most significant risk to public safety,” said Karen Pank, executive director of the Chief Probation Officers of California. The governor’s latest plan “is good for California as a whole, not just for probation departments or for counties. You need to ensure that there are all of the tools available for dealing with this population.”
When she heard this news our own Susan Lankford said “I like what Karen Pank has to say. We are definitely not set up in local counties to handle this population of young criminals. It sounds as though Sacramento has listened, at last!”
We are glad to see that Gov. Brown took a slightly longer-term view. Too often are short-term gains embraced despite grossly inflated long-term costs, particularly in politics.
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