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Budget Conference Committee Approves Major Juvenile Justice Reform Package
June 20, 2007
by David Steinhart
Yesterday afternoon the Joint Legislative Budget Conference Committee adopted a juvenile justice "realignment" plan that will downsize the state youth corrections system (DJJ), dropping its incarcerated youth population from 2,500 to an estimated 1,500 wards over the next two years.
The reform package approved by the Conference Committee is a modified version of the DJJ "population shift" plan proposed by the Governor in his January Budget release. The Administration—disheartened by the accelerating cost of operating DJJ under court-ordered changes—proposed in January to shift non-violent juvenile offenders from state to county control while also providing counties with block grant funds to handle these cases locally.
Confinement cost at the state Division of Juvenile Justice has risen, according to the Department of Finance, to $218,000 per ward per year. Moreover, total state cost is magnified by the number of years each ward spends in state custody (the average stay for all new commitments in 2006 was 33 months). Equivalent county costs and stays in custody are much lower. Thus, from a cost perspective, the realignment proposal was seen as a win-win plan that could produce significant state savings as well as decent funds for counties to manage the shifted caseload.
While many details on the realignment package, as approved by budget conferees, have yet to be made public, here are the basic provisions as known.
BAN ON COMMITMENTS
As of September 1, 2007, only juvenile offenders adjudicated for serious and violent crimes on the Welfare and Institutions Section 707 (b) list can be committed to the state system. So called "non 707s" will no longer be committable to DJJ. An exception was carved out for a small number of non-707 juvenile sex offenders who would remain committable to the state system. In 2006, of approximately 800 juveniles committed to DJJ by county courts, about 320 fell into the "non 707" category.FUNDS TO COUNTIES
Counties must now provide their own programs and facilities for non 707s who can no longer be sent to the state system. A multi-faceted fiscal package will provide counties with funds for this purpose.- A block grant, administered by Corrections Standards Authority (CSA), will provide counties with realignment funds based on a value of $117,000 per ward per year. Since counties will no longer pay sliding scale fees for non-committed wards, the actual value to the county of this payout is pegged at $130,000 per ward.
- Block grants will be distributed to counties based on their at-risk youth population age 10-17 (50% factor) and their juvenile felony disposition rate (50% factor). The Governor's original distribution formula was based on historical commitment rates, but this was abandoned because it tended to penalize counties that have, for various reasons, reduced utilization of DJJ in recent years. Small counties will receive a minimum guarantee grant.
- Planning grant funds ($15 million total) will be available to counties to help them develop local and regional programs and facility plans for shifted wards.
- Construction bond funds ($100 million) will go in the pipeline for eventual distribution to counties for local and regional facilities needed to accommodate the population shift.
CURRENT POPULATION
Currently institutionalized wards meeting the "non committable" criteria (non707s) will be phased out of state institutions. Counties may "opt in" to recalling individual wards to county control. For each recalled ward, the county would receive a payout based on $117,000/year for the ward's custody and care. Currently, there are about 1,000 non-707 wards in DJJ institutions.DJJ PAROLE
The package falls short of a total realignment of DJJ parole operations to county probation departments. It does specify that wards shifted to county control—whether by the commitment ban or by recall—could no longer be returned to a DJJ institution for a violation of probation or parole. The block grants to counties will include funds for local probation supervision of realigned cases, in lieu of supervision by DJJ's Parole Division.OVERSIGHT COMMISSION
Per concerns raised by Senator Mike Machado, who sits on the Budget Conference Committee and who Chairs the Senate Budget Subcommittee overseeing DJJ, there will be an oversight commission responsible for the development of new standards and outcome measures for counties accepting realignment funds. Details on the precise makeup, mandate and staffing of the oversight group have yet to be released.
The reform package will be built into the Budget Act and budget trailer bills soon to be sent to the Governor. The Governor is expected to approve the appropriations for DJJ realignment, based on Department of Finance input into the plan and on the fact that the Governor proposed it in the first place.
Juvenile justice reform advocates are applauding this as a transforming event in the history of the California juvenile justice system. The old Youth Authority had fallen into disrepute with high levels of violence, ward suicides, weak education and training programs, substandard facilities and high release failure rates. Even under the pressure of the Farrell litigation and court remedial plans, the new Division of Juvenile Justice has been unable, in any reasonable time frame, to transform the old Youth Authority into an acceptable new model of remedial custody and care. In 2007, DJJ has missed numerous compliance deadlines and has been unable to fill vacant staff slots. Frustration over DJJ has been spreading in the Capitol. Not long ago, the Assembly Public Safety Committee approved a bill that would shut the entire DJJ operation down.
Rather than abandon DJJ, the Budget Conference Committee has approved a rather tightly engineered realignment plan that will give counties full control over juvenile offenders with moderate and non-violent offense profiles. One result of the plan is that many of these offenders will now go into programs and facilities that are much closer to the homes, families and communities to which they will eventually be returned. Another result is that, in the future, DJJ should find it much easier to implement Farrell reforms over the smaller, retained serious offender population.
This is not the first juvenile justice realignment proposal that lawmakers in Sacramento have reviewed—but it is the only one in recent history to garner some measure of county support. Probation Chiefs (CPOC) and County Supervisors (CSAC) indicated, in public hearings and Capitol planning groups, that they would support the population shift if adequate state funds were made available to county governments. In this case, with state costs hitting new highs, the state was able to offer counties a per-ward value that the counties felt they could live with.
Now, the responsibility falls upon counties—mainly probation departments and courts—to show that they can do the job that the state could not handle. The implementation challenge will be substantial. Only about half of California's 58 counties have local commitment facilities (camps and ranches) for juvenile offenders. Specialized programs for offenders with mental health disorders and other special needs are few and far between at the county level. Regional programs and facilities will need to be developed by consortiums of smaller and rural counties. Mid-sized and urban counties will need to find new confinement space, or convert existing space, for offenders who can no longer be sent to state institutions.
Even with implementation challenges, this realignment package drew surprisingly broad and bi-partisan support among Capitol policymakers. Staying with the status quo—i.e. keeping the commitment door open for anyone counties wished to send to DJJ—became an untenable option given current Farrell costs and constraints.