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Krisberg, who is also an appointed monitor reporting on improvements at state-run youth cilities, predicted a tough sell for Browns proposal at the Capitol. Im hearing there is not much enthusiasm in the Legislature for this, he said.
Because many high-level wards are adults by the time theyve served their sentences, what they critically need, Krisberg said, is help from the state with post-incarceration re-entry to society, including housing, access to mental-health medication and job placement.
In hearings and official letters last year, the association argued that if California youth prisons were no longer on option, it was inevitable that for public safety, prosecutors would likely try many more juveniles as adults and send them to adult state prison. District attorneys also argued that if counties had to pay the state $125,000 per ward, more youths would also likely be prosecuted as adults.
Thats not as much as the $200,000 a year it costs the state for each ward in existing youth prisons, Kim said. But she said it could help dissuade counties from trying to avoid keeping young offenders by putting them in adult prison.
Gov. Andrew Cuomos budget proposal this year includes a deal for New York City to keep most of its offenders locally. Mayor Michael Bloomberg complained in 2010 that it costNew York City$62 million in 2009 to satisfy a requirement that it pay half the states costs for jailing, on daily average, fewer than 600 youth offenders from the city.
District attorneys, too, are expected to fight Browns proposal; indeed, theCalifornia District Attorneys Associationhas already shown it can play hardball on the issue.
It was a move driven, some argue, largely by Californias massive budget deficits and the desire to lower ballooning incarceration costs. But the decision also dovetailed with an emerging national philosophy voring locally-based rehabilitation programs over state-run cilities that have been plagued with records of neglect, danger and ual abuse.
The drop in numbers of youths in state custody is due in part to a decline in juvenile crime in California, but also to state legislation in 2007 thatblocked countiesfrom sending nonviolent youth offenders to state-run detention centers.
This is the second time since taking office last year that Brown has proposed closing the state juvenile division, which is part of its corrections system. The divisions responsibility has already beenslashed dramaticallyfrom 10,000 wards in the mid-1990s to about 1,100 in state custody today. Their numbers may be few, but the cost for keeping those youth in state custody runs about $200,000-a-year for every ward.
Krisberg said that in the end, hed prefer to see California keep a few hundred beds for juveniles at the state level and enact strong policies and provide adequate funding for monitoring and improving local treatment.
sacramento adult school Fight brewing over historic California plan to close last three youth prisons,Much depends, though, on whether the states politically influential prison guards, probation officers and district attorneys can be convinced or forced by legislators to agree to Browns proposal. That wont be an easy sell, due to both public-safety arguments and sure-to-suce haggling over just who pays to house juvenile offenders.
The group has crafted a draft bill designed to force counties to pay for minors they send to state prison, Jennifer Kim, a Books Not Bars leader, told the Center for Public Integrity. We are currently shopping it around the Legislature, Kim said.
The state-run jails were r from New York City wards milies, the mayor argued, and had dubious records, like Californias, with recidivism rates of about 80 percent.
However, Baker said, the union also is willing to talk about a compromise and wants to be part of the solution. A meeting is planned in mid-February among union representatives to discuss more steps toward continuing reforms to the state cilities, he said.
Sure enough, revenues didnt improve, and the now the counties are balking at having to pay the $125,000 per ward they owe. And Brown isnt collecting. Instead he has resurrected his idea to shut down the state cilities, and give counties even less than he offered before.
Dan Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan group in San Francisco, is a friend of Krisberg, but differs with him on this issue, arguing for a shutdown of state cilities that he says are relics of a iled rehabilitation model.
Krisberg also has his own doubts that the state government should completely phase out its ability to take custody of minors.
He fears that some counties arent bluffing when they argue that they are not suited to handle high-level young offenders.
Baker said that instead of a complete closure, the union vors trying to reduce costs per ward, and continuing improvements at the state-run juvenile prisons, which have been operating for a number of years under court decree to improve conditions.
That deal was considered historic because after years of waffling, legislators authorized a significant shift of certain low-level adult felons to county responsibility. The aim was to cut state costs and satisfy federal court orders to clear Californias overcrowded prisons.
Krisberg said a total closure would be the most radical juvenile justice reform in history. Hed rather see the division shifted to the states Department of Education, possibly, and out of the prison system.
This time, given that only three state juvenile cilities remain, legislators are perhaps under more pressure not to overburden counties, which are already coping with llout from last years budget deal.
Vowing to restructure government more efficiently, Brown, [adult school] Ask Norman football yearbooks (0) 2011-12-27 14:48:32 a Democrat, wants to close the last three of 11 youth prisons that have long been attacked by critics as expensive ilures. If the state phases out the last three of its aging detention centers, all future young offenders would be held, schooled and treated by Californias 58 counties.
Meanwhile, he said, youve got a state system thats really hanging by a thumbnail.
Besides, Macallair said, the majority of the states wards come from only about a dozen counties, out of 58, that have grown reliant on the state, and need to be pushed tsacramento adult schoolo develop a better infrastructure locally for rehabilitation. His groupsresearch, Macallair said, shows that despite claims to the contrary, Californias counties have enough room and the ability to appropriately separate juveniles.
Most legislators in California are Democrats, as Brown is, but they are always under pressure not to appear soft on crime. They are also mindful that Californias correctional workers union is a big player in state politics and a heavy donor to campaigns.
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Kim said the bill calls for counties to pay the state the going adult rate about $52,500 a year for each minor put in adult prison based on the discretion of a prosecutor.
California could be its own country, Kim said. Its so big. And we cant figure out how to handle about 1,000 kids? Thats smaller than the high school I went to.
He also noted that county systems for youth offenders are not scandal-free. The Los Angeles County Probation Department is under federal order to rein in use of force, including pepper spray, as well as neglect of wards with mental health problems and suicidal tendencies.
Books Not Bars, a prison rights group that backs Browns proposal, is preparing to counter the prosecutors threat.
Many, but not all, juvenile justice reformers nationwide are cheering Browns announcement this month.
Mark Varela, legislative chairman for theChief Probation Officers of California, said his group continues to oppose closing the last three state juvenile detention centers, although, individually, there are some probation chiefs in California who vor it and say they are ready.
As it was last year, Browns idea is embedded in his proposed 2012-13 state budget announced this month. It will be hashed over publicly and privately before legislators make a decision by a June 15 deadline.
Lubow of the Annie E. Casey Foundation said that if Brown is able to pull off the feat of closing all state cilities, other states will have a model to follow. California is at the leading edge of a national trend, he said, to abandon centralized cilities that are scandal-prone and ineffective.
In December, afederal reportfound that the Los Angeles probation department still fell short of improvements it was ordered to make.
Varela said opponents concern is that the youth in DJJ [the Division of Juvenile Justice] represent offenders with a high degree of sophistication, who could have a negative impact on lower-level offenders who might not easily be separated from them in local cilities.
California, often a trendsetter, could make history if it approves Gov. Jerry Browns bid to close all state-run youth prisons and eliminate its state Division of Juvenile Justice.
Were very disappointed with the proposal. We feel it is an immense disservice to youth offenders, JeVaughn Baker, spokesman for the correctional workers union, told the Center for Public Integrity.
The same phenomenon is happening on the two coasts, said Bart Lubow, director of programs for high-risk youth at theAnnie E. Casey Foundation. He noted that New York State, too, is shifting care for juveniles more to local custody for cost-control and quality reasons.
Kim said that while legislators might be vulnerable to soft-on-crime accusations, they also are under fire after years of chopping education severely, closing parks and stripping down other services. They need to justify, Kim said, spending millions on a system that ils to reform most of its wards, and has a record of documented abuses.
By mixing the populations, Varela said, the more violent youths, some of them incarcerated for murder or offenses, could endanger or influence others and undermine their progress.
Like the district attorneys association, theCalifornia Correctional Peace Officers Associationis also opposed to Browns idea.
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Behind the policy debate: never-ending negotiations over money. The 2sacramento adult school Fight brewing over historic California plan to close last three youth prisons007 initiative included millions in state money to counties to devise and provide more effective treatment closer to wards home areas and milies. Last year, after wrangling with Brown, legislators approved a deal requiring counties to begin paying $125,000 for each ward they sent to the state, if the states revenues didnt improve.
The correctional workers union contributed heavily to Browns election, and continues to have a seat at the table when it comes to prison reforms. But with California reeling from waves of budget cuts, it doesnt have the clout it used to at the state Capitol and has had to accept changes that cut jobs, saidBarry Krisberg, an expert on incarceration policy at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.