This year, Governor Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 823 Juvenile Justice Realignment which will close the State Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and create a system in which youth, currently court-ordered as wards of DJJ, will be served in counties. This legislation provides funding to counties to serve the realigned population and a framework for broader community input on the use of that funding via a required Subcommittee of the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council.
Yolo County already benefits from a Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council as required to receive Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act and the Youthful Offender Block Grant funds. The purpose and membership of the Council are identified in Welfare and Institutions Code section749.22, which states in part:
[E]ach county shall be required to establish a multiagency juvenile justice coordinating council that shall develop and implement a continuum of county-based responses to juvenile crime. The coordinating councils shall, at a minimum, include the chief probation officer, as chair, and one representative each from the district attorney's office, the public defender's office, the sheriff's department, the board of supervisors, the department of social services, the department of mental health, a community-based drug and alcohol program, a city police department, the county office of education or a school district, and an at-large community representative.
Note: The Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council is different from the Juvenile Justice Commission which is an entity of the Court for the purpose to inquire into the administration of juvenile court law in Yolo County. The Juvenile Justice Commission is charged with annually inspecting publicly-administered institutions for minors and reporting the results and related recommendations to the juvenile court and the Board of State & Community Corrections.
To date, Yolo County’s Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council has met annually to perform activities required by Welfare and Institutions Code section 749.22, including:
[To] develop a comprehensive, multiagency plan that identifies the resources and strategies for providing an effective continuum of responses for the prevention, intervention, supervision, treatment, and incarceration of male and female juvenile offenders, including strategies to develop and implement locally based or regionally based out-of-home placement options for youths who are persons described in Section 602.
The Probation Department would like to more frequently utilize the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council as an advisory body for a multitude of juvenile justice-related topics, including options for future use of the Juvenile Detention facility. These are conversations that would benefit from public input.
As referenced above, Juvenile Justice Realignment requires the creation of a subcommittee of the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council to develop a plan to provide appropriate rehabilitation and supervision services for their population currently served by DJJ, but which will transfer to counties starting on July 1, 2021. The Juvenile Justice Realignment Subcommittee must meet certain minimum membership requirements established in Welfare and Institutions Code section 1995, which states in part:
No fewer than three community members who shall be defined as individuals who have experience providing community-based youth services, youth justice advocates with expertise and knowledge of the juvenile justice system, or have been directly involved in the juvenile justice system.
Through the attached ordinance, the Probation Department proposes to increase public participation through an expanded subcommittee whose members also serve on the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council. This will broaden the conversation on juvenile justice-related matters and meet requirements to be eligible for Juvenile Justice Realignment Block grant funds. Specifically, the ordinance formalizes a process whereby the Board of Supervisors appoints a community member nominated from each supervisorial district to the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council. These five public members would meet the requirements of the Juvenile Justice Realignment Subcommittee and fill the position of the at-large member on Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, which has previously been appointed by the Probation Department.
This ordinance is introduced for initial consideration on November 17, 2020 and will return for adoption on December 15, 2020. The noticing requirements of the Maddy Act, though not mandatory for initial appointments to a newly-formed body, will be adhered to with appointments by the Board to occur no earlier than the December 15, 2020 Board of Supervisors meeting. |