‘Stunning’ proposal to put more youths in city’s juvenile hall
Even as San Francisco moves toward the unprecedented closure of its juvenile hall to end the jailing of young people, a new proposal by probation officials could significantly increase the number of youths held there.
The idea to create a “detentionbased therapeutic program” shocked many city officials, who criticized the plan as an unvetted move by juvenile probation officials to fill empty cells and save the facility.
The “Commitment to Success” plan, aimed at males age 16 to 18, would require youths to spend at least six months in the maximum security setting, participating in a range of programs including anger management, financial literacy, health education, vocational training and social skills development, according to an overview submitted to the Juvenile Probation Commission.
The program would target young people who have escalat
ing criminal behavior and for whom other interventions have failed.
Department officials said they began considering the program last June, after the closure of Log Cabin Ranch, a less secure facility in the Santa Cruz mountains used for longterm commitments for youths who posed an increased risk, but who did not need to be incarcerated in staterun youth prisons. The ranch shut down due to the dwindling number of youths in custody and habitual runaways.
A rehabilitative program in juvenile hall would fill the void, probation officials said, providing an alternative to outofstate placements and longterm sentences to juvenile hall — a facility designed for shortterm stays.
“We cannot lose sight of the here and now, and the fact that we have young people today that require the services that this program will provide,” said Juvenile Probation Chief Allen Nance.
The proposal is not a “ploy to fill the juvenile hall,” but instead aims to address the need for a longterm commitment program in the city, Nance said.
“While (critics) may not agree that the program should be in juvenile hall, they certainly can’t disagree that the need exists,” he said.
The proposal, presented to the commission late Wednesday, came as a surprise to those on the appointed board, given their role in overseeing the policies, programming and staffing at juvenile hall. Youth advocates raised concerns that it goes against the city’s efforts to limit the number of youths detained in San Francisco.
“I was shocked,” said Margaret Brodkin, one of the commissioners. “It was stunning not only because it was inconsistent (with the decision to close juvenile hall), but because I hadn’t heard anything about it.”
In June, the Board of Supervisors voted 101 to shut down juvenile hall by the end of 2021, creating a range of communitybased, therapeutic alternatives to address the needs of youths involved in the criminal justice system, including a secure setting for those who pose a safety risk. Nance, who reports to the commission, opposed the decision.
The proposed incustody program would house youths in at least one of the currently vacant units in juvenile hall, and could handle up to 10 young males, said Assistant Juvenile Probation Chief Paula Hernandez. The program would utilize empty space in the facility and be funded by the probation department’s existing budget.
The juvenile hall can hold up to 150 incarcerated youths, but on a recent day there were just 30 in custody.
“There’s a gap for young people in our system today, and we are not in a position to wait two years,” said Nance, referring to the deadline for the closure of juvenile hall. “If we can prevent a youth from ... being placed out of state, we believe it’s within our existing authority and responsibility to do something about that now.”
Probation officials said everything is in place for the program to get up and running, but did not give an exact date of when it might launch. The department does not need city approval since it would be implemented with existing department resources, Nance said.
The juvenile court judges support the proposal, the public defender’s office opposes it, and the district attorney has not stated a position, probation officials said.
Supervisor Shamann Walton, who led the effort to shutter juvenile hall, called the proposal “sickening,” and echoed a concern among many advocates that it’s simply a way to increase the population and justify the existence of the facility.
“It’s not only totally opposite the right thing to do, but totally opposite the direction we’re trying to go as a city,” Walton said. “To me it’s a reflection of really having backward thinking.”
Brodkin also questioned how the Juvenile Probation Department could launch a comprehensive program inside juvenile hall, with a range of programs and support services for 10 or more young males — without any additional funding.
“They maintain this can all be done on the same budget, so my concern is what are we spending the money on now?” she said.
Last year, with youth crime at historic lows and the number of teens held in the facility continuing to decline, the staffing ratio at San Francisco’s juvenile hall had dipped to about one adult for every two youths held, pushing the annual cost to incarcerate a young person to $374,000, up from $195,000 in 2011.
The Chronicle highlighted these issues in a special report, “Vanishing Violence,” earlier this year.
Mayor London Breed created a task force in March to examine the county’s juvenile justice system, including how best to use its nearly vacant juvenile hall, and to make recommendations for potential reforms, including alternatives to detention.
The mayor's office said these kinds of proposals should be moving through the task force.
San Francisco’s proposed Commitment to Success program would be similar to those run out of Contra Costa County juvenile hall, where the court requires youths to complete a series of classes and counseling sessions before release. The participants are required to abide by a similar schedule and set of rules as others in the locked facility, sleeping in cells, wearing jailtype pants and shirts, and subject to shackling or other consequences for breaking the rules.
Daniel Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and a member of the task force, said he supports keeping young people out of distant group homes, but probation’s proposal came with little input from the community or outside agencies.
“Probation is trying to do something on the quick, without consulting with the larger bodies engaged in this process,” he said. “It looked like they slapped something together for the purpose of filling the hall.”