After transferring juvenile detention and rehabilitation from the state’s hands to that of California’s counties, Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Katherine Lucero, a former San Jose judge, as the first director of the new Office of Youth and Community Restoration in 2021.
Lucero comes to that entity, which is part of the California Health and Human Services Agency, with her own backstory: She’d grown up with an alcoholic father — he got sober when she was 15 — in a home with dysfunctions like those she saw during her 20 years on the Santa Clara County Superior Court. There, she supervised the Juvenile Justice Court, presided over the Juvenile Court Division and launched therapy-based treatment courts for substance-abusing parents and traumatized teens.
Shortly before California’s last youth prison closed on June 30, reporter Brian Rinker interviewed Lucero about counties’ readiness to assume their new responsibilities and about her new role at that 30-employee office.