Opinion: California juvenile reforms should proceed, despite probation officer lobbying efforts

As California’s juvenile probation caseloads have plummeted and annual costs of incarcerating a single youth skyrocketed to hundreds of thousands of dollars, juvenile probation departments, nevertheless, have manage to stave off severe budget cuts and layoffs. But that ride seemingly is ending as counties explore less costly alternatives to incarceration and probation.

Closing, and Opening, Youth Detention Centers for the Right Reasons

Several times during my incarceration I was housed at prisons under threat of closure. As in any work place that is in danger of being shut down there was a great deal of fear on the part of staff. Often prisons are located in areas that do not have many other local jobs. Employees face not just loss of their jobs, but also forced relocation to other parts of the state. Each time this happened the genesis of the issue was a proposed budget cut to the state agency.

High-Needs Kids and Juvenile Justice Reforms

As California and the nation continue to struggle with budget crises, creative and cost-effective approaches in the provision of services for high-needs youthful offender populations are becoming increasingly necessary. Leaders in California, Georgia and New York have recently called for reform or “realignment” of their out-of-date state-run juvenile justice systems. While the urgency for reform in many states is a result of strained state budgets, it serves as an opportunity to engage juvenile justice stakeholders to restructure their juvenile justice systems in a more efficient and effective manner. One population to pay particular attention to when planning for juvenile justice realignment is the disproportionate number of youth with mental health needs in juvenile facilities, known as the “crossover caseload.”

These highest-needs youth have historically been neglected during times of reform, when in fact they are the youth most in need of quality, individualized care. As a result of 1980s mental health system reform, juvenile justice systems, in effect, replaced public psychiatric hospitals in the care of mentally ill youth; despite the fact that the juvenile justice system lacks the resources to provide adequate services for this population. Although rates of juvenile incarceration have been declining, a disproportionate number of youth in this crossover caseload are still being confined, between 50-70 percent nationally and 42 percent in California, according to conservative estimates.

The De-Incarceration of California’s Juvenile Justice System

The juvenile justice system in California has been evolving faster than most other parts of  the country.  While Missouri, Texas and other states have reduced their youth prison populations, California has made the most drastic reductions. At its peak in 1996, California housed more than 10,000 adolescents in its youth prisons. Today there are 1,096 youth held in just four facilities with one of those scheduled to close in a little more than a month. The idea of de-incarceration is not new. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the closure of Massachusetts’ youth training schools.