1. Authorize the Probation and Public Defender Departments to end all juvenile fee collection activity effective October 11, 2017, the date the bill was signed; and 
    
2. Authorize the Probation and Public Defender Departments to carry out the administrative tasks to discharge all outstanding juvenile debts.  

On October 11, 2017 Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill (SB) 190 into law; this bill ends juvenile fees effective January 1, 2018. Authored by Senators Holly J. Mitchell and Ricardo Lara, the signing of SB 190 follows several years of advocacy efforts to reform how fees are assessed to families with detained youth. For purposes of SB 190, “juvenile fees” refers to current law that allows administrative fees charged to parents, guardians, and youth for detention, legal representation, electronic monitoring, probation or home supervision, and drug testing while the youth is under the jurisdiction of a juvenile court. It is important to note that while juvenile fees have historically applied to youth under the age of eighteen, SB 190 extends the definition of “juvenile fees” to any youth under the age of twenty-one. Under SB190 only adults who are over the age of twenty-one and under the jurisdiction of the criminal court may be assessed fees.

Previous to the signing of SB 190, Boards of Supervisors in the state of California had significant authority in establishing and collecting Juvenile Probation fees by designating county staff to evaluate a family’s ability to pay fees and to determine the appropriate amount based on that assessment. SB 190 repeals a County’s Board authority to establish, assess and collect fees associated with adjudicating, detaining and supervising youth in the criminal justice system. More specifically the law removes the ability of local counties to recover costs for:

• juvenile probation supervision and detention;
• administration of home detention participants (Electronic Monitoring);
• drug testing; and
• providing counsel

SB 190 does not change a county’s ability to collect restitution on behalf of crime victims, or to charge restitution fines, and it does not prohibit the collection of previously assessed juvenile fees. The Probation department will be conducting a public information campaign to notify families about this change, by posting information on the department’s website, sending an informational flyer to all families with a juvenile debt on record, and posting notices in conspicuous places in the lobbies.

In addition to stopping the assessment of juvenile fees, the Yolo County Chief Probation Officer, Brent Cardall, and the Yolo County Public Defender, Tracie Olson, are recommending the discharge of all previously assessed juvenile fees. This recommendation results from evaluating the high administrative cost of collecting juvenile fees, as compared to the low amount of revenues these efforts actually result in, and the conclusion that it is not cost effective to continue pursuing collection efforts in this area. As an example, the total amount of Probation juvenile fees collected in the last fiscal (2017/2018) was $13,515, yet a significant amount of resources above this has been invested in this effort. 

Furthermore, data suggests there is a correlation between charging juvenile fees and higher recidivism rates, likely due to the disproportionate number of low-income families in the juvenile justice system and their inability to pay fees. In a March 2017 UC Berkeley study, researchers found that continuing collection practices on prior debts is believed to be counter-productive, in that it undermines the rehabilitation process for youth and their families. Many counties including Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Santa Clara, and Sonoma Counties stopped assessing juvenile fees before the enactment of SB 190, and San Francisco has never charged fees.

• Public Defender Fees             $203,302
• Probation Department Fees $1,487,210