News Coverage
Ventura County’s Approach to Latino Youth on Probation
From The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Two evening reporting centers at community-based organizations in Ventura County, California, are taking a different approach to probation. It involves boxing, silk-screening t-shirts, tutoring and eating together every night, like a family.
Brown wants to keep more youth in juvenile detention, not prison
From The Sacramento Bee
Criminal and juvenile justice reform has been a key part of Gov. Jerry Brown’s time in office, and his final proposed budget calls for keeping more youth offenders in juvenile detention facilities instead of prison.
Girls in Detention Find Encouragement Through Running Club
From County News Center
Ten teenage girls wearing matching purple T-shirts and Nike sneakers run around and around a small interior recreational yard, marking their hands with a highlighter pen for each lap. Twenty- seven laps is a 5K – the length of the race they plan to run in this Sunday.
“You can do it, keep going,” someone says when one slows to walk.
Probation chief recommends ending contract housing refugee minors at juvenile hall
From The Davis Enterprise
Yolo County’s chief probation officer is recommending that the county end its agreement with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to house unaccompanied refugee minors at the county’s juvenile detention center.
The Board of Supervisors will consider terminating the contract at its meeting on Tuesday.
‘It’s pretty cool.’ Parents of juvenile offenders see their kids’ art in the courthouse
From the Sacramento Bee
There are two large, glass display cases to the right when you walk through the Sacramento County Juvenile Court. One features a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. constructed from colorful, handmade paper squares. The other has woodwork pieces, including two birdhouses, a small Christmas tree, and a snowman painted white sporting a top hat and red bow tie.
Izen Locatelli Appointed Chief Probation Officer of Mendocino County
Izen Locatelli has been appointed and sworn in as Chief Probation Officer for the County of Mendocino.
The swearing in took place on Friday, February 23, 2018, where Chief Locatelli was sworn in by the Honorable Ann C. Moorman.
Monterey County reentry program graduates ready for change
February 14, 2018
From The Californian
Sharon Barajas has gotten her life together at the Monterey County Day Reporting Center after being placed on felony probation, Barajas told a roomful of people in Salinas on Monday night.
“I wasn’t doing very well, I wasn’t on a good path and I needed a wake-up call and this definitely was the start of a new life for me,” said Barajas.
Rebuilding futures: Young offenders graduate from Chaderjian’s new construction program
January 25, 2018
From The Record -
As Jonathan Hernandez-Sanchez walked into his graduation ceremony Thursday, he scanned the room for his mother.
He knew his mom, Yvette Sanchez, was somewhere among the dozens of businessmen, dignitaries and correctional officers gathered to watch him and his peers receive their certificates.
Can the Design of L.A.’s New Juvenile Detention Facility Change the Future of Youth Incarceration?
Malibu’s Campus Kilpatrick detention facility aims to be a national model for juvenile justice through a humanizing architecture.
From Metropolis -
Overlooking Malibu, in the midst of the Santa Monica Mountains’ vineyard-dotted landscape, lies Los Angeles County’s $48 million wager on the future of youth incarceration.
Campus Kilpatrick opened its doors in July, replacing a 1960s complex known as Camp Vernon Kilpatrick. California lawmakers voted to allocate County funds to demolish and rebuild the dilapidated detention facility and its harsh, barracks-style quarters.
California may up its rehab efforts to keep ex-inmates from returning to prison
January 24, 2018
From CALmatters -
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to add millions in new spending on programs to help former inmates stay out of jail—a proposal generating bipartisan praise because of concern they are returning to prison in large numbers. But some say it still isn’t enough.
The proposed $50 million would expand job training for prisoners and assist them in finding jobs once they are released, such as training them to become firefighters.
Criminal justice reform is working
December 22, 2017
From the Press Enterprise -
Over the past several years, California has dramatically reduced the prison population, given hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to live a better life free from the burden of a felony record for low-level offenses and freed up hundreds of millions of dollars for crime prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.
California prison rehabilitation programs should actually work
December 13, 2017
From the OC Register - California has work to do to ensure that prison rehabilitation programs serve their purpose, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recent reported.
Riverside County adopts “Lean” approach to transforming probation department
From CA Fwd - When data from a Riverside County jail study were released last year, the county’s probation department responded by changing the way it did business. The report, conducted by CA Fwd’s Justice System Change Initiative (J-SCI), showed nearly half of the daily jail population was not in custody for a new crime.
Chief Terri McDonald Discuss Importance of Juvenile Justice Realignment
Probation Chiefs Commemorate 10 Year Anniversary of Historic Reform
Watch Los Angeles County Chief Probation Officer Terri McDonald discuss the importance of Juvenile Justice Realignment and how it has helped make significant progress in California’s juvenile justice system.
Juvenile Justice Realignment began with the passage of Senate Bill 81 in 2007. This legislation shifted the responsibility for the majority of youth in the juvenile justice system from the state to county probation departments and away from the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) run by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Juvenile crime rates plummet amid new approaches to tackling youth crime
San Diego County
When San Diego County went looking for grant funds to help build a 300-bed jail for juveniles, officials argued that the 1950s-era Juvenile Hall on Meadowlark Lane was strained to the breaking point.
“There is literally no more room at the inn,” the county warned in a grant application in 1999 seeking $36 million in construction funds for what would become, in 2004, the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility.
And things were only going to get worse: At the time, the county estimated it would need 1,284 beds to house all its juvenile offenders by 2015.
Remember the real goals of state’s Proposition 57
By Chief Mary Butler
From the San Diego Union Tribune
In November, the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) supported and co-signed Proposition 57: The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act. CPOC supported Proposition 57 because as leaders in the probation industry, we believe Proposition 57 lays out a framework for a strong foundation to build on and enhance a better system for public safety.
AB 1250 will hurt critical public safety reforms
By Chief Butler and Mark Bontrager
From Napa Valley Register
AB 1250, which is currently moving through the California Legislature, would have detrimental effects on critical public safety reforms in California.
