Probation in California has the responsibility of treating and supervising our community’s most high-needs and high-risk youth. We take our role in promoting healthy, prepared and positive adolescents seriously and provide each youth the supervision and support services they need to help guide them into adulthood.
The use of individualized, evidence-based practices to advance the long-term well-being of youth is foundational to our work. We rely on practices and tools such as risk and needs-based assessments, cognitive development, counseling, therapy, and trauma-informed care and evidence-based supervision models.
Our rehabilitative and health-centered focus has been proven successful.
Since 2007, California’s juvenile justice system, led by local probation departments, has successfully decreased juvenile detention rates by 60% and juvenile arrest rates by 73%. In addition, we safely treat 90% of youth in the justice system in our communities, and have diverted nearly 67% of youth.
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in California this year, county probation departments remained focused on keeping our youth safe both in the community and in our secure facilities while still creatively providing the supports and services each youth needed for stability and their individualized growth. While protecting youth from exposure, we adopted practices such as online distance learning so youth did not miss school and we used technology to ensure youth in our halls still had access to friends, family and due process with their legal representatives.
Brian Richart
Through partnerships with other public safety agencies, county departments of public health, California Health and Human Services Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, county probation departments stayed vigilant while serving our youth, staff and communities. Relying on the guidelines from health experts, we carefully assessed each youth to determine who could be safely released into stable environments that would not negatively impact their progress.
For youth who remained in our facilities, we followed strict health and safety protocols to keep youth and staff as safe as possible. While rates of exposure climbed in community settings, exposure in our facilities stayed extremely low to nonexistent in almost every jurisdiction.
Probation is devoted to keeping up these safety measures for as long as necessary. Each county is closely monitoring for new developments and will shift safety protocols as needed. As a result of our health protocols, the number of youth in juvenile halls and those subject to bookings have decreased even further. The Board of State and Community Corrections recently released data showcasing a significant decrease in juvenile detention hall populations and bookings. According to the report, juvenile hall populations decreased statewide by nearly 33% from late February through mid-April and statewide bookings decreased by nearly 55%.
We favor next step in raise the age
As we look ahead to the immediate future focused on youth and community safety, we know that our highly trained professionals are best suited to handle the transition recently proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to have county probation departments take the responsibility of high-needs youth currently under the purview of the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice.
Probation is uniquely equipped to handle this realignment as we have been integral to evolving California’s juvenile justice system and as we have learned more about the effects of adverse childhood experiences and social, emotional and mental health needs of our young people. We follow the research and science to fulfill our statutorily stated mission of rehabilitating youth.
In fact, contemporary scientific findings on brain development is what drove us to propose earlier this year a policy that would raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 17 to 19 and remove these youth from the risks of exposure to the adult criminal justice system. This proposal coupled raising the age with additional proven rehabilitation strategies and supportive programming.
While the pandemic and the resulting budget deficits temporarily paused moving forward with the proposal this year, California Probation will continue to be supportive of policies based on research that will improve youths’ lives and community safety.
With the pandemic-induced budget deficits at the state and in every county, California Probation will be tested even further as we are the safety net for the justice system. Our positive results with youth are a result of our individualized rehabilitation focus coupled with access to appropriate and proper resources. With more expected from our departments than ever before, to continue our progress we must not cut back on resources to properly supervise, treat and support our youth. Our youth need this support and services to help them transform their lives and successfully transition into adulthood.
Our ability to care for and treat youth who have experienced trauma is beneficial to them and their families, is rewarding to our officers and cost-effective for taxpayers. Youth needs cannot be left unaddressed if we want to maintain safety in our communities and health and wellness in our youth. They require specialized programming, enhanced services and highly trained probation staff to deliver services for youth. This is only successful with the appropriate investments.
California Probation remains focused on serving our communities and each youth under our care. We are ready for the challenge of today and committed to continuing our progress to transform lives for the better.
Chief Brian Richart of El Dorado County Probation is the president of Chief Probation Officers of California.