The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to hire a probation reform consultant to study splitting the department into two agencies, one for adults and one for juveniles.
Two weeks ago, Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Mark Ridley-Thomas proposed a working group to evaluate the need for a new watchdog commission to oversee the Probation Department, which has been plagued with problems for years.
Ridley-Thomas said a more dramatic shift might be necessary.
“Even with oversight, is this department capable of fulfilling its mission as currently structured?” Ridley-Thomas asked.
Kuehl said creating a separate agency might better serve juvenile offenders.
“Sometimes structure dictates outcomes,” Kuehl said.
Advocates said juvenile justice should prioritize rehabilitation.
Young people in the county’s juvenile halls should “be cultivated not quashed,” said Eric Preven, a one-time candidate for county supervisor and frequent board critic.
Recent juvenile justice reforms outside the county include Gov. Jerry Brown’s push to overhaul sentencing laws, the White House ban on solitary confinement for youth in federal prisons and a Supreme Court ruling that life sentences for juvenile offenders are unconstitutional.
Diana Zuniga of Californians United for a Responsible Budget urged the board to prioritize youth development programs to help juveniles leaving the system find jobs and connections to the community instead of focusing only on probation.
The board’s action comes as it searches for a new chief probation officer. Cal Remington has stepped in as interim probation chief, a role he also filled in 2011, bookending the tenure of Jerry Powers, whose resignation was effective Jan. 4.
–City News Service