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  • Prior to 2010, the County operated a countywide Office of Revenue Collections. With revenues of about $1 million and expenses of about
  • $1.5 million, it operated at a "Net County Cost" of $505,935.

  • This Net County Cost was paid for by the County's "General Fund": public revenues that cover administrative functions as well as public protection, public assistance, health, education, and public facilities.

  • But in 2010, during the recession, the County Board of Supervisors dissolved the countywide Office of Revenue Collections.

But Alameda is reversing that trend:

On 3/29/16, spearheaded by

County Supervisors Carson and Valle

and in partnership with community organizations,

Alameda County passed an immediate moratorium

on assessing or collecting all juvenile justice fees.

This was the first moratorium passed by legislation in California.

Santa Clara plans to impose a moratorium on July 1, 2016,

and expects to make it permanent by October 1, 2016.

An Update on the Racial Justice Taskforce

Ellen McDonnell, for Racial Justice Coalition

Across the nation, people of color

are disproportionately affected

by the

criminal justice system.

On 4/25/16,

the County announced the opportunity

for community members

to apply for the 17-member Task Force.

Applications were due 6/13/16.

The County received 28 applications

for seven community seats.

Yesterday, 6/27/16, the Board of Supervisors'

Public Protection Committee (Supervisors Andersen and Gioia) interviewed applicants

and selected the seven community members.

Questions about the Racial Justice Task Force?

In the System:

One Child's Experience in CoCo

Brief Comments on Justice Reform Efforts in Contra Costa County

Brooke Harris,

Post-Disposition Reentry Attorney,

CoCo Office of the Public Defender

John Gioia, Supervisor: District 1

Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors

Randy's Story*

  • Randy is now 18 years old*
  • Middle of three children
  • Resides in East County
  • Raised by mother and grandfather
  • Father has been in prison for 10 years

*Identifying details have been modified.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Police, Probation,

District Attorney

and Court

Randy's Path

  • The events:
  • October 2012, at 14 years old, Randy was riding in a car with some friends who decided to break into a house.
  • The arrest (his first offense):
  • Caught and arrested, Randy was interviewed by the police (without an adult present).
  • He admitted to the investigating officer that he took two watches and an iPad.
  • At the police station, he expressed remorse and wrote an apology to the victim.
  • Case process:
  • Police department decided to report his case to Probation.
  • Probation decided to refer him to the District Attorney for prosecution
  • District Attorney decided to charge him with First Degree Residential Burglary.
  • Court referred him for consideration for "Deferred Entry of Judgment" (DEJ).
  • Probation found him "unsuitable" for DEJ.
  • Pending resolution of his case, Probation placed him on electronic monitoring.
  • Disposition and initial cost:
  • January 2013: Pleaded guilty to Second Degree Burglary, with a maximum custody term of three years. Probation recommended in-custody program at the Ranch
  • March 2013: Court instead sentenced him to another 90 days on ankle monitoring and made him an indefinite Ward of the Court.
  • By this point, he had spent 22 weeks in the system: 32 days in Juvenile Hall and 122 days on electronic monitoring, at a potential cost to parents of $3,034.

"Deferred Entry of Judgment" allows a conviction to be dismissed if the person abides by conditions for 18 months.

There are a lot of rules for me to follow.

  • May 2013, while on Home Detention (now 15 years old):
  • Probation charged him with violating terms of supervision (unauthorized absence from Home Detention)
  • Probation took him into custody
  • Court sentenced him to six months at the Ranch
  • June 2013:
  • Charged with fighting at the Ranch, which is a Probation violation
  • Sentence extended by 60 days (now sentenced to a total of eight months)
  • November 2013:
  • Charged with fighting at the Ranch, which is a Probation violation
  • Sentence extended by 60 days (now sentenced to a total of ten months)
  • Spring 2014 (now 16 years old):
  • Released from Ranch, returned to home
  • As an indefinite Ward of the Court, still under Probation supervision
  • May 2014:
  • Charged with curfew violation and truancy, which are Probation violations
  • Recommitted to Ranch for 56 days (time remaining on his Parole)
  • June-August 2014:
  • Charged with fighting at the Ranch, which is a Probation violation
  • Contested Dispositional Hearing
  • Ordered to an Out of Home group placement in Stockton (40 miles away)
  • March 2015-August 2015 (now 17 years old):
  • Alleged to be AWOL from group placement, sent back to Juvenile Hall
  • Ordered into placement at Rite of Passage in San Andreas, CA (90 miles away)
  • August 2015-May 2016 (now 18 years old):
  • Held at Rite of Passage until release/graduation at age 18
  • Sent back to Contra Costa, released from custody
  • Remains on Probation

Outcomes?

Questions for Brooke?

So, after stealing two watches and an iPad at 14,

Randy has been in the juvenile justice system

for almost four years.

He has spent almost all of his teenage years

away from home and family:

at the Ranch, at the Hall, or in a group placement.

He has been moved at least eight times.

His educational setting has changed with each move.

Cost of Probation

The possible total cost billable to Randy's mother

for all of his years under Probation supervision

likely approaches $40,000.

Although this amount can be reduced

based on CoCo's sliding scale

(which Donté will talk about next),

the amount due from his mother

will probably exceed $10,000.

Questions for Brooke?

Welcome All!

To the Monthly Meeting of Reentry Solutions Group

Tuesday, June 28, 2016, Noon to 2 PM

Bermuda Room, Civic Center, Richmond, CA

Juvenile Fees in Contra Costa:

An Overview

Agenda:

  • 12:00: Settling In

  • 12:20: Who's New in the Room?

  • 12:30 Justice Reform Efforts in CoCo (County Supervisor John Gioia)

  • 12:40: Update on the Racial Justice Task Force (Ellen McDonnell, for RJ Coalition)

  • 12:50: In the Juvenile System: One Example (Brooke Harris, Public Defender's Office)

  • 1:10: Juvenile Fees in CoCo (Donté Blue, County Reentry Coordinator)

  • 1:30: One Option: Alameda County Moratorium (Meredith Desautels, LCCR)

  • 1:50: Public Comment on Juvenile Fees (Feedback sheets)

  • 2:00: Adjourn

Who's New in the Room?

Donté Blue

Contra Costa County

Reentry Coordinator

What's your name, what brings you here today, and how did you learn about RSG?

The Cost of Juvenile Probation

Contra Costa County Probation Department

has a "Collections Unit"

that is responsible for assessing, billing, and collecting various

justice-related fines and fees (for both adult probationers and juveniles).

This Unit has a staff of 4.6 people, with an annual cost of about $588,000. The costs for the Collections Unit are paid for by the fines and fees collected from justice-involved adults and from parents of juveniles.

It hasn't always been this way:

Contra Costa's juvenile detention fees

are among the highest in-custody juvenile fees in the state of California.

Source: UC Berkeley Policy Advocacy Clinic

How much money does the County earn from all this?

What is the billing process?

Each time a child exits some element of Probation supervision

(the Hall, the Ranch, electronic monitoring),

the Probation Collections Unit calculates a bill

based on the number of days the child spent.

That bill is sent to parents as part of a collections letter,

along with an "Ability to Pay" form.

If parents complete and return that form,

the Collections Unit will create a new bill,

using a sliding scale, based on the family's

"net discretionary income."

Another Approach

to

Youth and Family Justice

Meredith Desautels, Rosenberg Fellow,

Racial Justice Staff Attorney

at Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights

Contra Costa is not the only county

that raised their juvenile fees during the recession.

In 2009, Alameda County raised its detention fees

from $10.11/ day to $25.29/day - a 250% increase.

Yet Alameda's rate is still 15% lower

than Contra Costa's $30 daily fee.

Juvenile fees offer little public benefit

Questions for Meredith?

Contra Costa could continue

serving as a leader in justice reform

by becoming

one of the first counties in California

to eliminate juvenile fines and fees.

Make your voice heard:

Please complete and hand in

your Feedback Sheets!!

And remember:

Next RSG meeting is August 30, 2016

- No RSG meeting in July

  • CoCo generates limited revenue from juvenile fees: As RSG's analysis of the Collections Unit demonstrates, CoCo generates about $100,000 in net revenue from Juvenile fines each year.

  • CoCo expends significant resources assessing and collecting juvenile fees: Reallocating these resources to more efficient purposes is consistent with good governance and with justice reinvestment.

  • Juvenile fees exacerbate economic inequality: Because the juvenile justice system disproportionately affects low income people of color, imposing juvenile fees only widens the economic disparities that underlie entrenched poverty.

  • Juvenile fees disproportionately burden families of color: Children and youth of color are disproportionately involved in the juvenile justice system. In addition, they receive disproportionately longer sentences than Caucasian youth. As a result, they accrue more fees and owe more in total debt.

  • Maintaining a policy of juvenile fees is inconsistent with national efforts to reduce incarceration: By creating additional hardships and stressors, juvenile fees represent barriers to successful rehabilitation.

Questions for Donté?

"Imposing this kind of debt on families

induces economic and familial instability,

which undermines the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system."

Alameda County Supervisors Carson and Valle

What does this mean for a typical justice-involved family in CoCo?

If a family has $800/month in discretionary income,

that's a total of $26.67/day to cover

medical care, emergencies, clothes, education, savings, entertainment...

A Probation charge of $8/day represents

30% of that family's total discretionary income.

Average total family income for African Americans

in Contra Costa is $50,516/year.**

Average total family income for Latinos

in Contra Costa is $57,855/year.**

**Source: American Community Survey 2010-2014

Budget and Policy Decisions Made by the Board of Supervisors

When the County dissolved the Office of Revenue Collections in 2010,

Probation fomed its own Collections Unit,

absorbing the positions, the existing staff, and the expenses associated with Collections.

The change increased Probation's staffing and budget,

and it also changed the source of funding:

As a result of this County change, the cost of the Collections Unit is no longer covered by General Fund - instead, the cost of the Collections Unit is covered by the revenues collected from justice-involved individuals and families.

In the same year, the County Supervisors also raised

the maximum daily rate charged to families of justice-involved children:

Today, right now,

the Alameda County

Board of Supervisors is voting

on making their moratorium permanent.

What's Next?

The Board of Supervisors will vote on the

recommended candidates on 7/12/16.

A Request for Proposals for the facilitator and data specialist will be issued this fall.

To address this problem, in Nov. 2014

a group of people in CoCo formed the

Racial Justice Coalition,

funded by The California Endowment.

The RJC called on the County Board of Supervisors

to establish a Racial Justice Task Force

to redress racial and ethnic disparities

in the local criminal justice system.

In April 2016, the Board of Supervisors

agreed to this request, and agreed to fund a professional facilitator and a data partner.

My name is....

Recommended Community Seats for

Racial Justice Task Force

Two people from East, one from Central, two from West

  • Edith Jovana Fajardo (ACCE)
  • Christine Gerchow (Juvenile detention,"Mental-Health" seat)
  • Harlan Grossman (Retired judge, "At Large" member)
  • Donnell Jones (CCISCO)
  • Stephanie Medley (RYSE, CAB)
  • Myshallee Christian (CCISCO)
  • Dannisha Marsh (Pittsburg Community Advisory Council)

Daily Rates Approved by Board of Supervisors

At the "Hall": $30/day

(charges are supposed to be waived if the case is dismissed)

At the "Ranch": $30/day

Electronic monitoring (home detention): $17/day

Starting with these amounts,

the County then uses a sliding scale

to determine the actual amount due for each stay.

(We'll hear more about that in a minute.)

How does Probation calculate

a family's sliding scale?

Probation charges familes $1/day

for every $100 in monthly "net discretionary income."

Net discretionary income is any money left over

after paying rent/mortgage,

utilities, phone, food, car, and child care.

So, if a family has $400/month in net discretionary income,

Probation will charge $4/day or $120/month.

Delinquent accounts can be sent to the Franchise Tax Board

to intercept people's tax refunds or garnish their wages.

Why is eliminating juvenile fines and fees

smart and equitable public policy?

  • Fees harm family finances: Low-income families are disproportionately involved in the juvenile justice system. Imposing fees forces them into further instability and can increase collateral burdens on public systems and ordinary citizens.

  • Fees inhibit efforts to escape poverty: By garnishing wages and intercepting tax refunds, fee-related debt provide disincentives to work.

  • Fees harm family relationships and stability: Increased family stress and conflict related to financial burdens interferes with the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile system.

  • Fees harm community stability: The threat of fees may compel family members to relinquish custody of their children; may compel children to move out of the home in the hope of relieving the family of the burden of fees; may cause a parent to abandon the family in order to avoid the collection process.

"We believe that the goals and objectives of our juvenile justice system are being made without the need for fees imposed on those individuals and families that can least afford to pay them."

Allen Nance, San Francisco County Chief Juvenile Probation Officer

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