Stanislaus and neighboring counties will keep more youthful offenders closer to home if a monumental change to the state's juvenile justice system is approved with this year's budget.
"I've been in this business for 34 years, and this has been the biggest thing I've seen happen," said Brian L. Cooley, Merced County's chief probation officer.
Stanislaus County probation officials see the change as an opportunity to expand local resources, offer more supervision after the youths' release and build a juvenile camp.
The way the juvenile justice system operates now, counties send those convicted of the most serious offenses to facilities run by the state's Department of Juvenile Justice, formerly the California Youth Authority. About 2,600 youths are held in DJJ facilities; as of the end of 2006, nearly 7,000 were in juvenile halls and almost 4,400 were in juvenile camps.
Large counties with secure juvenile camps send only the worst offenders. Small and midsized counties such as Stanislaus send a handful of less serious felony offenders, too, because they have no long-term lockups of their own.
Stanislaus is the largest California county without a camp to house serious and postconviction offenders, according to its chief probation officer, Jerry Powers.
The new legislation, Senate Bill 81, proposes that the state pay counties to keep more offenders at the county level as of September.
The Schwarzenegger administration reached an agreement with legislative budget writers on the plan in July.
Backers say it would mean faster access to mental health and education programs, and that would translate into shorter sentences, smoother transitions back into the community, and a greater ability for counties to offer and enforce care once juveniles were released. It also would mean counties may get back some offenders they had sent to state care.
"This is a historic change, if it comes to pass," said San Francisco attorney Sue Burrell of the Youth Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that focuses on child welfare and juvenile justice.
"This is the kind of thing that just comes along once in a great while. Even if it's not perfect, it's the best we have," she said.
HE'D START BUILDING A CAMP
The state would give counties grants of $117,000 per juvenile per year to keep youths close to home. Counties would receive a waiver on fees paid to the state and receive some education funds under Proposition 98, a state constitutional amendment that guarantees public schools a minimum level of funding.
In Stanislaus County, this would mean close to $1.5 million a year, Powers said. The county would keep an extra six to seven juvenile offenders each year if the legislation passes. It's a small number, but the resulting seed money could have a huge impact, he said.
Powers said he knows what he'd do with the money: Begin to build a county or regional juvenile camp.
Juvenile camps differ from juvenile halls in several ways. Juvenile halls are meant for short-term custody before trial. After sentencing, juvenile camps offer more resources for youth.
"Camps, if they're done right, can really be a good way to go," said attorney Burrell. "You don't have (kids) locked in cells. They're outdoors a lot, often in rural settings. Kids can do projects and work on things they can do outside. It's much healthier than maintaining them in juvenile hall. And, if they're closer (to home), they can get visits from family."
The county's juvenile hall, built in 1978, is filled to capacity, forcing early releases and citations instead of sentencing for many offenses.
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