The Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF), formerly the California Youth Authority, will be shuttered under Governor's proposed budget, placing the responsibility for housing the most violent youth offenders in the laps of the counties. (There are currently 5 youth prisons and 2 camps that house over 1,100 juvenile offenders, at a cost of $193,111 per ward. If DJF is closed, California will be first in the nation to rely solely on local juvvie incarceration.)
Closing the DJF is a long-awaited decision by advocates of juvenile justice reform. Selena Teji and Emily Luhrs, both above, of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a San Francisco based nonprofit that seeks to reduce incarceration rates, refer to the changes that began to take effect with December's budget triggers in a blog post, republished in the California Progress Report:
The ...“budget triggers” agitated many counties, more specifically those sending disproportionately high numbers of youth to DJF... frustrated with Brown’s measure because they were forced to either pay $125,000 annually to keep a youth in DJF (approx 65% of the cost) or handle them locally without funding.
Ideally, this ['12-'13 budget] proposal should provide some relief for counties because now there is the opportunity for funding of local juvenile justice programs. The proposed budget will postpone the “budget triggers” and allocate an initial $10 million to counties to plan for juvenile justice realignment, followed by approximately $100 million each year.
The catch? No new commitments will be made to DJF as of Jan. 1, 2013 and counties will have no choice but to handle their high-needs and high-risk population locally.
Not everyone agrees: The California Correctional Peace Officers Association reportedly opposes the change, which could result in job losses. The counties that rely more heavily on the DJF for housing youth offenders will feel the burden the most, as they are already struggling to implement realignment of adult offenders from state to local prisons. (Read our previous story here.)
Currently, 7 of the state’s 58 counties: Merced, Monterey, Stanislaus, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, and Kings, account for two-thirds of the state's violent juvvie incarcerations. Other counties already serve this high-needs population at the local level in accordance with best practices and would largely not be affected by the budget triggers.
Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.
Comments