Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 3 on Health and Human Services

Orlando Zavala, Director Lucero, Karen Pank, Jasmine Delafosse and Brooke Harris. We'll start shortly.

Senate Budget Subcommitee No. 3 on Health and Human Services and the Subcommitee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation will begin in 60 seconds.

The Senate Budget Subcommitee No. 3 on Health and Human Services, along with No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation will come to an order. We are holding our Committee here on Building 1021, O Street.

I asked the rest of the Members in the Subcommitee to be present in Room 2100 so we can move forward--well, we will as they'll come trickling down. So today we have a wonderful hearing in collaboration with my co-Chair, Senator Durazo, who will be joining us shortly, holding an oversight hearing on juvenile justice realignment. In the 2020 Budget Act, the Governor and the Legislature initiated a plan to permanently close Department of Juvenile Justice and realign the responsibility for the care and supervision of all justice-involved youth to the counties.

However, when we talk about the realignment of jurisdiction, let's not forget the close to billion dollars that the state continues to bring down to the counties in ensuring on our part the accountability of how those dollars are being utilized to adequately serve the needs of the youth. As part of this transition, the Governor and the Legislature created the Office of Youth and Community Restoration, or moving forward will be known as OYCR in this hearing, to provide statewide assistance, coordination and oversight of the realigned system.

The recent closure--the ultimate recent closure of DJJ on June 30, 2023, marked a major milestone in realignment. Counties with the support of the state are in the middle of implementing realignment. Today we will hear about the progress and key challenges in the system. In my first year, last year of Sub 3 Chair, we started talking about the progress up to that point, the involvement of OYCR and so forth.

Since then, I've gone on a tour around the state of several juvenile facilities, starting with the one in my backyard in my very own district, the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall. I have also visited the Pine Grove Fire Camp about a couple hours away from here, and I've also visited Camp Kilpatrick. I will continue to do these tours.

I've sat down with advocates, leaders in this space both in LA County and across the state, diving further in through my chairship of Sub 3 and ensuring that we're really aligning the dollars with what our intention was a couple of years ago with the closure of DJJ. Today, as we celebrate Valentine's Day, or as those who don't celebrate Valentine's Day, love perhaps is a theme that will be brought up throughout this whole day.

And as we have this hearing, I thought it was appropriate that we think about what love and care we're providing to the youth across these juvenile halls, these fire camps and so forth. Unfortunately, it hasn't been full of love for a lot of these youth, predominantly in LA County. We were going to have another sub panel focused directly on LA County just because of the horrendous stories that we've heard coming out of that county.

Unfortunately, we did invite LA probation to join us in this conversation and they declined. I think it's--to be honest and transparent--a slap in the face to not come here and respond to the questions of me and my colleagues regarding what is happening in LA County and how we can work together.

If you're not at the table, we're not getting your input; it's a one-sided story. And I hope in the future we have a public conversation about what's going on in LA County and not private conversations as they did in meeting me and my colleagues behind closed doors and not responding to the public in this oversight.

We will be looking in this year regarding the money and the grants that are going to be distributed to our counties to address our juvenile halls. In last year's budget, we estimated approximately $990,000,000 to come down on a group of grants to our counties for justice realignment. In this proposed budget, it's approximately a little over 1 billion proposed dollars to address the needs of our youth.

We want to make sure, like I mentioned, all those dollars are going down to what the needs--the specific needs of our youth. 75% of the kids in our facilities are Black and Brown kids. Majority of them are male, and the first time they enter our system, they're the ages of 15 to 16 years old.

They're in situations that is no fault to their own: what families they were born into, what homes they live in, what community and zip codes they were growing up in, because us as a society did not invest in them on their early age--from their first breath--to ensure that we avoided the situation of them getting involved with the Justice Department.

Together, I hope we work both on the preventative side, but also what happens when we do--when some kids fall through the gaps and they fall into the juvenile justice, it is our responsibility to restore them, because they are not lost souls. I believe that every single youth deserves a second, third, fourth, a thousandth chance to come back with full restoration. So with that, I would like to kick it over. Madam co-Chair, if you have anything else you want to add to opening statements.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I agree, of course, with everything that you've said and how you've laid this out. These youth are in our custody, and we have failed. We have failed in many ways. Hopefully there's successes as well that we could identify as to how to make the changes.

These kids, I don't think, ever had even the first chance, because of where they were born and how they were born and all of their lives. So I actually think that they're quite heroic for taking up the challenges to get that first chance that they never got. So I see them as very strong individuals. We just have to give them the opportunity. So the complete realignment of juvenile justice was a major undertaking, major challenges for everybody at every level.

Never been done before, and of course, it initiated over three years ago. So now is the time for the Legislature to understand how the realignment has actually played out, what is and isn't working, and how the state can support the counties and the young people involved in this system.

In particular, my County of LA has the largest juvenile system in the state, and with that comes more in different challenges. I'm looking forward to hearing from all the panelists today, working with my colleagues in Sub 3 Health and Human Services, so we could shed light and move forward in a stronger way. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator. So the plan today is to start with an overview of the alignment, several perspectives on how realignment is rolling out across the state. We'll then move to a panel focused on just LA County and juvenile justice there. And we'll close by hearing some recommendations for our juvenile justice system moving forward. We will hear public comment in person at the end of the hearing. With that, let's start with our first panel. We will start with an overview from LAO.

Thank you, Subcommitee Chairs and Senator. My name is Orlando Sanchez with the LAO. I've been asked by your Committee staff to provide an overview on the juvenile justice and county funding provided through the state. If you're following along, I prepared a handout that's also available on our website. If you turn to page one, I'll start off giving some of the overview on how a juvenile enters the juvenile justice system. So they enter it primarily through an arrest.

And following that arrest, youths are generally turned over to county probation departments, where probation departments then determine whether to refer the youth to the juvenile court. If the juvenile court determines that the youth did in fact commit the crime, it then determines where to place the youth based on statute, input from the defense, prosecutors and factors such as the youth's previous criminal history. Most youths are placed by the juvenile courts with their families under the supervision of probation departments, but some are placed in facilities.

These include juvenile halls, camps and ranches. Prior to legislation enacted in 2020 and starting in 2021, a small number were placed in state juvenile facilities run by the Division of Juvenile Justice, which I'll refer to as DJJ. And youths are released from the county juvenile facilities when the juvenile court determines that they're ready or they reach the maximum age. Last year, 41 of 58 counties had juvenile facilities and the statewide average daily population was over 2,700, with individual counties having less than one youth to over 500 youths. Continuing on page two, a small number of youths can be referred to the adult court, and typically this happens in the most severe cases. In 2020, 12 youths were remanded to adult court statewide. And then on page three, I'll cover the most recent realignments and the closure of DJJ.

This is part of a long term shift from moving youths from the state facilities to county facilities. At its peak in 1996, nearly 20,400 youths were in a juvenile facility, and half of those were in state run-facilities. Since that time, the state has taken various steps to realign this population to county responsibility, and one of those includes increasing the costs charged to counties in 1997, limiting the types of youths that could be sent to state facilities in 2007, and requiring counties to supervise youths leaving DJJ in 2011. But over this time period, we've also seen the number of youths in both the state and the county facilities decline, and this is mostly driven by reduction in juvenile arrests.

Under the legislation adopted most recently in 2020, responsibility for DJJ youths has been fully realigned, with intake generally stopping to state facilities as of July 1 of 2021. Continuing with the timeline on page four, all DJJ facilities have now closed as of June 30 of last year, and the youth that were still housed at those facilities were transferred to counties with individualized transition plans.

And at the time of the realignment, it was expected that about over 900 youths were projected to be shifted at full implementation, which would have been 24-25. This would have represented a 26% increase over the 2019 pre-realignment levels to the counties. In 2023, the average daily population was 880 youths lower than those 2019 pre-realignment levels. At this time, it's unclear what's driving some of those.

Some of it is from the lower juvenile arrests, or it could be indicative of the effects of Covid-19, but right now it's unclear whether this is a temporary lower number or it's indicative of a downward trend. And then continuing on page five, I'll direct your attention to the table that provides some of the major sources of funding provided to counties through the state. The top section of that covers the funding provided for the realigned populations that I mentioned earlier.

Then the second part covers funding that the state provides for other juvenile justice activities. Now I'll provide a brief description of each of those. The Youthful Offender Block Grant supports the realigned population in 2007. This is due to limiting what youth could enter the DJJ facilities. The next one is the Juvenile Reentry Grant, which supports the realigned population being discharged from DJJ. That happened in 2010-11. And these funds generally grow from year to year, as shown on the table.

And the most recent Juvenile Justice Realignment Block Grant provides annual funding due to the closure of DJJ. And then one other note I'd like to mention is that as part of the realignment, there was a temporary allocation formula of this block grant that was set to expire on January 10, and the Governor is proposing statutory changes to keep that current formula an additional year to give more time for the Administration to engage with the Legislature and stakeholders on what a permanent formula would look like.

Continuing to the final page, the state also provided, since 2007, over 400 million in one-time funding for counties to renovate their juvenile facilities or construct juvenile facilities. And some of the additional portion of the funding that's on that second portion of the table includes totals over 500 million annually. And this covers the Juvenile Probation Activities Grant, which provides funding for youth under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.

The Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act, which provides funding for services targeted to youth in the criminal justice system, their families are at risk of being in it. And then the third one is a Juvenile Probation Funding Grant, which provides funding to counties that operate camps and ranches. Thank you. And I'm here with my colleague, Ms. Caitlin O'Neill, and happy to answer questions.

Thank you so much. We're going to hold our questions until after the entire sub panel one is done. Panelists, we have so many people, wonderful people to hear from. If we could keep our remarks to under five minutes, please. Director Lucero.

Thank you, Members of the Committee. Our purpose is to provide statewide leadership and technical assistance in key youth justice policy areas to all juvenile justice partners, government and community organizations. We do not have direct oversight authority over the conditions of the county juvenile halls. While our ombuds person can respond to individual complaints, we have no oversight facility inspection authority. We do analyze the county plans, receive the county plans and we are aware of the county programs.

Access to programs, healthcare, behavioral health treatment, and education are the central tenet of the TA that OYCR provides to counties and probation departments across the state. To date, OYCR has provided over 100 instances of technical assistance, including briefs, connecting system partners to resources and providing information and guidance on specific topics. We have conducted a series of webinars to help counties understand promising and evidence-based practices that keep health and human services priorities and vision forefront. We have trained over 700 partners.

Specific to CalAIM, we are working with CBOs with lived, experienced staff to contract with managed care plans to provide ECM services to youth, both prerelease in detention and after step down to less restrictive programs. In 2023, we conducted 41 site visits, met with 78 CBOs, and attended 147 public county meetings. We have committed $14.1 million for CBO capacity building.

We ensure that diversion, keeping youth in the most restrictive settings for the least amount of time, and that youth remain in the juvenile court systems by doing the following. We publish TA documents that focus on research that promotes positive youth justice and its relationship to public safety. We provide training in such topics as positive youth justice, the use of credible messengers, and our work on ending the incarceration of girls and gender expansive youth.

We have allocated $15 million in less restrictive program grants to 11 counties to run pilot sites on stepping youth back into communities with high touch models that involve economic support to sustain emerging adults. And we are funding a stakeholder initiative to promote collaborative Justice Court models for youth sent to SYTFs. In 2022, it looked like there were--2021-2022--two youth stepped down to less restricted programs and in 2022-2023, 100 youth were reported to have stepped down to less restrictive programs.

OYCR has identified 94 less restrictive programs with the assistance of CPOC. We also track counties which allow day furloughs to college and work, and we have now counted eight counties that allow youth to leave during the day. We track the above information through a diverse approach that includes various public data sources and engagement strategies. That includes conducting site visits, participating in county meetings, leveraging data from our ombuds division, reviewing the county plans, and analyzing the AB 102 data directly from the counties.

Our focus is improving the framework that centers racial and ethnic equity, guiding us to review data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, geography and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. This allows us to create tailored strategies like our campaign to end the incarceration of girls and gender expansive youth and to focus on the early identification of Native American youth in the JJ system.

Both K-12 and higher education access are ways that we are creating opportunities for equity, for our JJ youth to reach an equal outcome as their primary culture peers. We have assisted counties in getting college prep courses and college courses into their facilities. We have provided TA to partners who need information on literacy programs and we have provided TA to judges about what other judges are doing that allows youth to attend college outside of the facilities.

We are working closely with rising scholars and with the Department of Rehabilitation, in which we are working to release $30 million over three years to 10 counties to build a probation workforce development for youth. What is working? Approaching the reform work across stakeholder spectrum, engaging county offices of education, probation, behavioral health, judges, DAs, victim advocates, defenders, social services, youth advocates, CBOs, youth and their families.

This has been our focus to build these bridges and partnerships and to work together as youth in custody are parented by all of these entities. We also are building state-level reform agendas with our sister agencies like DOR, DSS, HKI, CYBHI and DHCS that includes our juvenile justice population. Key challenges are developing sustainable solutions for youth with complex mental health needs and the lack of uniformity around treatment interventions for youth who offend sexually. Thank you for your time and this opportunity to present.

Right on the money, Director. Okay, next up, Karen Pank from CPOC.

Thank you. Good morning, Members of the Committee. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. My name is Karen Pank. I have the honor of serving as the executive director for the Chief Probation Officers of California. I know you have a packed agenda, hard to describe the enormous amount of work that's already been done and to try to highlight some of the successes of this reform, and not because challenges don't exist. And I certainly would be happy to take any questions about that.

But we would like to look at some of the success and highlight some of that so that it may pave the way to the possibilities that I think Senator Menjivar spoke of at the outset of this Committee hearing. Sometimes the real story can get lost in data or program descriptions, and all of those items are a very important part to the story and help guide us to develop new policies and programs. However, it doesn't tell the whole story.

So I wanted to start with a few of those success stories that were put into motion by your support, so that you have a sense of not just how or the what probation does, but the why. A youth who had been entrenched in gangs for years we now see holding 3.8 GPA and attending the community college that was just cited in the earlier testimony, set to graduate in June. That's what we want to see more of. He became a mentor to the other youth in his facility and actively participated in parenting classes at that facility and will aid eventually in his reunification efforts with his own children. A youth that was attending community college within a local SYTF was recruited for a paid internship with finance software company Intuit.

One county had eight graduates of the multicore craft curriculum, which is a construction trade program, just last year, and after being bounced around from school to school, another youth obtained their AA degree in business administration while simultaneously enrolling in the National Academy of Sports Medicine with dreams to open his own personal training business. That's what we need to see more of. That's what we're striving to get to.

So to continue down this path and support the local options, there are additional things that the Legislature may want to look at to help address some of the remaining challenges that exist. I want to focus in on the vocational opportunities. As Director Lucero has talked about, there's been a significant amount of focus on the post-educational, and we are very appreciative of that. But vocational opportunities remain at the very top of the list for the youth. The youth are asking for more vocational opportunities.

And so while we had things like culinary and construction trades already embedded in our programming, SB 823 has supported new programs, such as an agricultural program within the facility. So there's farming and livestock inside the facility that the youth are working on. A full auto shop with a full car lift on site. I won't lie to you, I don't know exactly what that means, but I've been told it is very wonderful for training purposes. A music studio. Dog rescue therapy programs where the dogs actually live on the unit. But we need more.

Therefore, CPOC is hoping to continue to work with the Legislature and the state, continuing to work with OYCR to look at all the state programs and investments that have already been put in place over the past couple of years to develop a repository for counties to request assistance in developing those further employment opportunities. We think that'll be vital for their success.

As we all know, as we have together worked to decrease the detention footprint, those left in detention often find themselves having the most significant needs in our facilities. And while we did observe an increase in substance use with young adults that returned to local custody from GJJ at the time of closure, and a general uptick in drug usage, some of that impact is slowly dissipating due to quickly standing up interdiction efforts balanced with individualized treatment.

While there's always more need for resources in this space, one of the things we think as a potential opportunity is to enhance and leverage the justice-involved CalAIM work. So we're doing a lot of work in that space to try to do just that. And we are proposing to embed dedicated staff within probation departments to specifically focus on aligning those court-ordered plans and probation reentry work with the CalAIM eligible funding supports.

Now a bit on the facilities. While many of you have come to visit--and we really appreciate that and invite you all to do more of that--while facility improvement is probably an item that takes the longest to address, we are seeing some creative solutions--and happy to answer questions about that later on if you would like.

But one of the best stories I've heard that showcases the spirit of what we believe 823 is all about is how departments are really engaging the youth to develop what those facilities should look like and help inform the design and be a part of even the bureaucratic process, right? We have them meeting with architects and designers and describing to their juvenile justice subcommittees what their vision is. So I thought that was an amazing story in one of our departments.

We're going to have to wrap up a little bit.

Okay. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it all the way through. So one of the things, though, beyond facilities that we are suggesting the Legislature try to address is establishing a juvenile justice supportive living program within the California Department of Housing and Community Development to provide grants to the youth directly to support their transitional living after they leave us. And in conclusion, I would be remiss if I did not have an opportunity to quickly note the work of our dedicated staff serving our youth.

We must support those responsible for those who are supporting the success for the youth. Unfortunately, we are dealing with staffing shortages, and while the youth and emerging adults in our facilities are becoming more complex, much more discussion is needed in this space. However, to support the future of the profession, we have been pursuing a proposal to develop a bachelor's degree program that reflects the multidisciplinary academic approach that uniquely supports the work of the county probation department.

And specifically, modernizing our approach to how we support those in the field will not only better prepare the workforce in the spirit of 823, but will also inform the next generation of the opportunities within the profession. Thank you so much and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Now we'll turn over to some advocates, Jasmine and Brooke.

All right. Good morning, chair and Senate Members. My name is Jasmine Delafos. First of all, thank you for grounding and setting this hearing in love, in the spirit of love, and I hope that you receive this testimony in that spirit and nothing else. Centering the young people my name is Jasmine Delafoss. I'm a youth advocate, Member of the California alliance of Youth and Community justice, as well as a Member of numerous youth justice organizations.

For over the last decade, I've had the opportunity to work with young people in ensuring that they have access to resources and the support they need to be able to thrive and heal. I've been asked today to share about some of the stories we heard from advocates and young people and organizations across the state about the changes and progress that have been made towards this continuum.

Today I'm here as a youth advocate again, who has had personal experience working with young people within facilities, both formerly at DJJ as well as current juvenile hall facilities here. I've also had the opportunity to work with young people who just been directly impacted by the criminal justice system. So I've had firsthand recognizing and seeing the harsh realities firsthand directly from young people, hearing it from young people, and also seeing it.

I've also traveled up and down the state, from many facilities up and down the state, hearing and supporting young people as they return back from DJJ into local juvenile hall facilities, as well as supporting them in their current transition plans and supportive services. After I've worked with young people in counties all the way from San Joaquin county to La County, Orange County, Kern, County, Sacramento County, Tulare County, Kings County, Monterey, Alameda, Mercedes, Santa Clara, and more, to name a few.

While transitions have continued to be difficult, they have been many firsthand stories that have expressed frustration and concerns around the lack of programming inside facilities, and I wanted to name that the consideration for lesser restrictions continue to be, in some counties, nonexistent. The extent of the traumatic stories from young people that I hear continue to be devastating and can take, like I said, several hours to share some of these stories.

But what I will share is that what we are hearing from young people is that SYTFs understanding that SYTFs again, were never created for long term stays. And one of the things that we continue to see is sometimes the lack of thought around what it would look like post this. Juvenile halls in these facilities lack some of the mobility for young people. We hear from young people that it lacks the freedom of movement. It lacks the freedom of outside engagement.

In some counties, we hear that some young people don't even get to go outside. If they do, it's once a week or something. There are counties that continue to lack community access for SYTFs. We need to allow more organizations and organization providers to receive access.

We continue to hear the struggles and the lack of commitment to work with groups and organizations who are already doing this work, who have done decades of work serving young people, who have evidence based programming, yet still continue to be not included as potential lesser restrictives for community based organizations. We also heard some things about educational opportunities here, but I know directly from young people who shared with me their concern around taking and having the opportunity to have higher ed opportunities.

But they're only given one course, and most of those times, those courses are always elective courses. They never go towards their General ed. And so we hear frustration from young people saying, I could take more education programs, but oftentimes they aren't. Those youth who are not in those youth who are over 18, who are not taking high school credits are basically spending time within their window for several hours knowing that they can be able to take more advantage of time.

zero my God, time is going fast. We haven't seen uniformity around the youth review board hearings in counties. I've sat in several transition hearings. I have seen the lack of consideration for step downs as it's being considered before the board. Hopefully Brooke could talk more about that. We believe that it continues to be unacceptable, that there are not considerations for that. As it goes for the realignment, there was a mark to shift funding.

Organizations have yet to see some of those investments go back into community based organizations. As you probably do an analysis and recommend that the board here do an analysis on how counties are spending money and how much is going towards probation and not necessarily organizations directly. If they are, it's really less than 1% in many counties.

And that we've seen that in terms of community involvement, we are asking that probation consider to work more and not serve always as a gatekeeper in controlling the input that people have in participation. And we hope that this continue to lead organization, lead partners to think about that. We laid out a lot. I know I talked a lot. I have more to ask. If we have questions, I'd love to get to it.

And we just continue to ask that we continue to open more resources for partners and organizations and ensure that funding that we make a commitment to continue to Fund the realignment because it's going to take deeper investments.

And I know that the state is in some sort of deficit, but I'm hoping that we can just a little, but we got enough savings, and I believe that we can continue to make this strong investment for young people and make sure that the Governor and this Legislature continues to do that for partners.

Thank you so much, Jasmine.

Brooke good morning, subcommittees. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. My name is Brooke Harris. I'm the Executive Director of the Pacific Juvenile Defender center, an organization that supports and trains juvenile public defenders across California. With a membership of over 2000 lawyers, social workers, and policy advocates, our organization provides consistent opportunities for defenders from counties all over the state to discuss pressing, realignment related issues. Defenders are fighting every day in court to fulfill the vision of SB 823.

Armed with clear statutory language, they fight to ensure that every other option is exhausted before a client is committed to an SYTF. They advocate for individual rehabilitation plans that provide the programming and support that each youth in an SYTF needs to successfully transition back to the community, and they fight against the transfer of youth to the adult court system. A mandate of SBA 23 I'm here to share what defenders see as the key obstacles and potential legislative solutions to fulfilling the vision of SBA 23.

The primary key issue is that currently, SYTF facilities are harming young people and providing insufficient access to the variety of services that clients need to change their lives. As the threshold matters, these SYTFs should not be in juvenile halls. The Legislature envisioned SYTFs as home like environments conducive to rehabilitation. Yet every single probation Department that elected to create an SYTF did so inside of a juvenile hall. Buildings historically meant to hold young people for a short amount of time in a maximum security facility.

Youth and SYTFs are relegated to a single module of a juvenile hall, potentially for years at a time, and lack the freedom of movement that young people had at DJJ and that all youth need and deserve. Juvenile halls are the exact opposite of homelike environments contemplated in the realignment statute.

Additionally, defenders in a number of counties have reported that there's often just one counseling services provider, one or two vocational educational opportunities, as Ms. Pank was describing, one college course or degree offered, and so on, such that a youth's individual rehabilitation plan becomes rote and dependent on what that probation Department might offer versus the individual therapeutic needs that a young person might have, rendering the IRP anything but individual.

Some youth are being offered the exact same programs and services that they were doing in the juvenile hall prior to their commitment to the SYTF. The solution is to increase the programming provided by CBOs and SYTF programs. As my colleague Jasmine so articulately said better SYTFs could also help reduce transfers to adult court. Defenders on the ground are seeing an increase in motions to transfer youth to adult court.

This is particularly concerning given this Legislature's passing of a number of laws that restrict who is eligible for transfer and that raise the burden of proof at a transfer hearing. A second key issue raised by defenders that we've all talked about today is the need for more options for less restrictive programs, both at the time of initial disposition, when someone is going to SYTF, and when a young person is ready to leave a secure track program.

SYTF is meant to be a last resort, yet too often it is the first and only resort. Defenders in some counties are describing net widening where there are more youth being committed to SYTFs than were previously committed to DJJ. This is not across the board, but this is happening in some counties. The focus on in custody SYTF facilities means that the development of less restrictive programs has been De emphasized and ignored.

Defenders from some counties report that the only available LRP is Pine Grove, a CDCR run facility, or that probation departments are working on creating their own lrps in camp or ranch settings or other on site probation run facilities. We need to develop less restrictive programs so that courts have viable, safe alternatives to SYTF. We can do this by investing technical assistance, capacity building, and funding to community based organizations that can serve young people inside and outside of SYTF facilities.

For real healing to happen, youth need connections to community. This cannot be done from a cell in a juvenile hall to fully identify the problems of net widening, an increase in transfer, and racial and ethnic disparities in our system. We as advocates and you as legislators desperately need more data. There are some statewide data provided to OICR per SB 102, but we need more to fully understand problems and identify solutions. We need data broken down by county.

Despite these challenges, defenders believe absolutely that we can make California's extraordinary vision of a health based approach to youth justice a reality. Defenders are in court every day, fully engaged in the mission of realignment. We all must do our part to continue the implementation process until we have achieved our shared goals. Not only is it possible to get this right, but it's imperative. It's imperative for the youth in SYTF. It's imperative for the safety of our communities and for all of us.

I thank you for your continued engagement on this issue, and I just want to say Senator Mendovar is absolutely right. We need love, and we also need dollars to align to the purpose of realignment. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Brooke. All right, I'm going to kick off two questions and then send it to my colleagues to my left and right, and we'll just continue that way. Okay, I'm going to start just a clarifying question. Orlando, on page six, you spoke about the $400 million allocation for renovations. Just, I think for my understanding, I was various allocations of one time funding or lump sum of one time funding for $110,000,000 in 2007.

Yeah, it was various allocations that sum up to the 400.

When was the last time that we.

This was in the 2223 budget cycle. It was 110,000,000 that was provided for that purpose. The 2223 budget.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Director Lucero. I have some questions your way. We were trying to start off with you gave some information regarding some of the Ta that you provided, counties and so forth. And I'll start off with what Brooke mentioned regarding the Ta needed for cbos to have more options for less restricted. Have we provided any Ta to cbos to create more options like that? Across the state, we have a work.

Group that is specifically a CBO capacity building workgroup made up of a variety of partners that meets monthly and is part of our youth justice Committee from the Child Welfare Council. And that work group specifically is run by also partnering with Sierra Health, the National Center for Youth Law and Public Works alliance. They are providing a strategy for just that.

Senator, we want to be able to have cbos have built infrastructure and sustainable income and have partnerships with probation that can be developed as trustworthy partnerships for building a continuum of care, both diversionary continuum of care, in custody continuum of care, and post release continuums of care. So that is one of the three primary topics and goals of OICR. And that is what we are doing. And that's where we funded that initiative at $14 million.

Since the offices OYCR's inception, when you stated some of the jurisdictions under your office, have we provided any actual policy recommendations for improved outcomes and identified best practices for the county juvenile halls?

When we go on site visits and we are very much welcomed by the county leadership, we do have discussions about best policies and best practices. As you can imagine, 58 counties have 58 different ways of doing things that are very particular and unique. We come with usually a group of folks who have different expertise, and so we are able to suggest policy changes. We are able to suggest programs, and with follow up technical assistance, we're able to deliver models, contacts.

So in that way, we have been able to suggest very individualized assistance to counties when we're on site, any overarching.

Statewide, I believe there's 4358 counties have the juvenile halls, if I'm not mistaken. 43, I believe. Yeah. Any overarching policy recommendations for those? 43?

So my colleague to my left is saying, 41.

41.

There we go. I think a huge assistance would be developing, working on culture. What is the culture? We saw a really great example of a facility that actually does a survey, a monthly survey, and takes the temperature of the culture within the facility from staff and from the youth. And in that way, they are able to really serve the youth well, and staff feel safe and youth feel safe. So that's a direct kind of taking the temperature of the culture.

And I think that we do need to lead in behavioral management, types of programs, incentives. We need to help the youth feel like they're working on themselves when they're in the facilities and working on possibly getting time off at the six month hearing. So I think those are some of the things that we would like to partner with CPAC on. And we meet bi weekly or every other two times a month, and we are working on some very specific training for probation officers.

Thank you, colleagues.

Yes, I have. Thank you. Thank you very much. Director Lucero, do you believe that you're getting the kind of information at the county level and the individual level that you need? And if not, what is the kind of information that you would need?

Well, I think during this transition period, we're starting to identify what we need, and we're starting to identify gaps. I think ideally, it would have a similarity to how we are able to track and understand our foster care population. I think that would be the best case scenario. So that's not the fault of the counties. That's not anyone's fault.

I just think that this is a new and different way to serve our youth and to have what we need to do that is something that is in development.

Okay. And there was mention of, I think, I'm not exactly sure who said this, but of communication between the counties and sharing information or sharing programs. Someone said that if someone could address that. How far are you going in getting and sharing the kind of information or cooperation between the counties?

Do you want to take that? Okay. So what we're doing is information is king. Helping counties know what's happening in other counties is gold. Judges want to know. Probation chiefs want to know. Behavioral health folks want to know, because this is how we learn. Right. So we're trying to develop communities of learning with our stakeholders. We have a stakeholder initiative with Brooks organization, with the prosecutors alliance and with the LA County probation, public defenders and DA, because we want collaborative justice.

We want this to reflect what does collaborative justice look like? So it's after a youth has been put in an SYTF, what does a six month review hearing look? So we want to spread. LA is actually doing a really good job at that.

And I know you're going to hear from Judge Espinoza in a little bit, but they've actually, by Organically have developed what I would consider to be a collaborative court where the stakeholders meet on the progress of each of the youth before the hearing and they talk about the youth, and then the judge chimes in and everybody gets to have some sort of agreement about how the youth will progress and what kind of time will be taken off the youth. So information sharing is king.

So we are cataloging the less restrictive programs across the state. We are cataloging who's letting kids go to college from the SYTF. We're cataloging cbos and not only developing capacity, but we're identifying where they are. And we have a plan to actually go into counties that don't have cbos and help develop cbos, and we're looking at regional CBO agreements. So information is the key, and sharing it is paramount, and that is what OICR will be really good at and is good at.

But the more information we have, the more we can share. And a lot of our work is on our website.

Jasmine, were you the one who mentioned about the education opportunities are more restrictive than what they should be? Only electives, very limited. So could you describe that a little bit more, and what do you think is the quickest way to address that?

Yes, I think that some of the things that we're hearing directly from young people is just the lack of career planning with them understanding some of the resources, pathways that they can consider and take. And oftentimes some of the schools that the community colleges that they're partnering with are limiting them to those electives. So it's not necessarily just the facilities within itself, it's the institution.

I think there needs to be ongoing collaboration with the community colleges of California to ensure that there are direct partnerships and communications around pathway plans for young people. And I think that that can be streamlined very quickly. I think that young people who we know are going to be there when they have minimum times of three years to seven years. Those are the youth that we need to directly target, and then we need to get plans directly right away.

One thing that I've noticed when working with some of these young people in the facilities is that when they get inside facilities, there's no direct. Let's sit down and let's talk about your three year, seven year plan in these facilities. Let's talk about not just six months, but there lacks uniformity, again, around a young person understanding what their role, what they're doing in these facilities and how they're really aiming towards healing and thriving beyond these facilities.

And so in many cases, it's not working because we don't have plans out immediately when a young person gets committed. So they have these opportunities that are put before them and they're told, hey, here are some courses you could take. Here are some programs. And many times some of those courses or programs are not even existed because they may be named and they may offer them, they may have money towards them, but they don't have a service provider to do that program.

And oftentimes what the issue is is that then young people get stagnant in where they are, and then they have frustration in the place and time that they're at, and then they're considered, and then they're looked at like they're not doing anything. But we have failed to plan with them their plan and strategy.

And so I think we just need to work towards amending either contracts or plannings with the community colleges of California, as well as these education partners who actually are trained and are able to help young people facilitate a career plan, whether that be vocational or whether that be through getting an AA by the end of their time.

Okay, thank you. I just want to go back to the sharing Director. Lucero said information is key. Ms. Pang, could you address that about the data sharing?

Well, absolutely. And we would agree with actually both of the points that were just made. There are limitations. Speaking of the educational piece just now, there is, I think, those limits when you decentralize a very small program, right? When you think about going from one place where it would just frankly be easier to deliver all of the services at DJJ and now trying to filter that out to all of the different communities. So some of it is probably due to that.

The other part know you can't look at it in just a vacuum, which is another reason why information and data sharing is important, because it's not just the educational piece that we're responsible for. Making sure happens and the planning needs to take place at the beginning. We would definitely agree, and we think that that is happening in a lot of places.

It is in light of trying to deconflict a lot of the different requirements that we need to be sure the youth is getting at the same time. So it's both the economies of scale, it's both still new in the programming, getting that set up, and also trying to be sure that we're looking at educational as well as vocational needs, as well as other regulatory requirements that we're responsible for. And knowing that there's only a certain amount of time in the day.

So all of those things we're continuing to work on and learning from our partners and how people are kind of breaking some of those codes is one of the things that actually CPAC tries to develop opportunities for those learning environments amongst our membership.

And I'm sorry, just to go back to information sharing.

Yes.

Is there a way, I mean, what are the ways in which you can do more of that? Because, as Director Lucetto said, we need more of that information is key. So how can you facilitate that to get the information that's needed?

Sure. And we worked really closely with trying to get the most recent data request delivered to both Director Lucero and OICR, which I believe is cited in some of the packet of information. And some of it, I would also agree that as we are implementing, we are learning exactly what we need. We are learning exactly which systems are the best systems to pull some of that information.

And while we also participate in the foster care data, as was noted, and do agree that there's some richness to that, it's also a system that's set up entirely differently. Right. It's a federal mandate. There's federal ways in which to pull that. There's systems that have long been built to support that. And so I think we know that the data system at DOJ is being talked about, put together to try to address some of those things.

We want to be able to have one repository in which to do that. So I think we're open to all of those discussions for whatever reason, probably because of technology at times, and you're dealing with 58 different counties. That can be a barrier.

Thank you.

Before I turn on. Sorry, Senator, just because on this topic, on the education, you spoke, Karen, about some culinary art, I visited Camp KP, where it's one of the State of the art kitchen, but no courses are being given because of the college issues. And, Director, how can we connect with the colleges? Because, for example, in that case, mission college, where for a lot of cases, they need a minimum of 15 students exactly to give the course. Right.

Camp KP only has 17, so that'd be the whole entire. So how are we working with Ta to get these courses. They also have a Wood shop that isn't giving out any courses. So we have built these entities, we built these infrastructure, and it's kind of like a tease for these youth. They pass by each time, and they can't utilize. So what Ta are we thinking about?

Because you said you work with the Department of Education on how can we make these classes come back to life?

Rising scholars is very much in partnership with LA County. I think maybe four or five community colleges actually were awarded. Unfortunately, there's many layers to the point that you're describing, Senator. It's not just getting rising scholars in there, but it's also making sure that probation is cooperating with County Office of Education, and that in that environment, that a way is being made by the many stakeholders that need to make AB.

Just because the partnership is there does not mean that it's implemented what we're doing to provide Ta. We have Dr. Michael Masa in LA. He was the former principal of the County Office of Education at the court schools. We have an education advisory board that meets monthly with key stakeholders from all over the education field. I myself have met with the Superintendent of Coe in LA County. I think her first name is Maribel, but I cannot remember her last name.

So we have gone in and tried to unlayer. Why isn't the culinary class in there? Why isn't the Wood shop class in there? But we can only do what we're doing, which is inquire, which is help the entities start to unlayer and unpack, to look to see if there's any gatekeeping anywhere. To look to see if there's a lack of dollar somewhere. To look to see if maybe there needs to be support from the Board of Supervisors.

But it is, as you know, Senator, a very complicated and layered political system. But we are there. I spend at least two to three days a month in Los Angeles, attending various public meetings, meeting with stakeholders, meeting with Das, PDS judges. So I have been able to visit some of the facilities. I was just at Dorothy Kirby last week. So those are some of the Ta ways that we're in LA.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just curious, Ms. Harris, what's driving the increase in adult charging of youth in custody? And are there efforts, I mean, given what's going on in the system, are there efforts being made to retain these youth in the juvenile system? And if not, why not?

Well, there are certainly efforts on the behalf of defenders who receive these cases, who fight incredibly hard to keep youth in the juvenile court system. Frankly, the increase in filing of transfer petitions may be used as a negotiation tactic to get a commitment to an SYTF for a youth. We don't know. The truth is we don't know. We don't have the data. Again, there's the statewide data.

We have it in our agenda, but it's not telling us the complete picture of what's going on in each county. We really need to understand that. We need to know what's happening in each county.

How do we get that?

Well, I think through the counties, counties should be able to tell you or I how many transfer petitions are filed in a given year.

Is it possible that the condition in some of these facilities creates an environment in which situations occur which lead to the attempt to increase charges and charge youth as adults in criminal proceedings?

Absolutely. That sort of could be a similar but related issue. Right. We are seeing the filing of adult charges on young people who are over.

18 in Sytfs, but under maybe 23.

But under 23, that's different than transfer. Right. A transfer petition is for a young person who commits a crime before they're 18 and they're petitioning to transfer them to the adult court system. So I think that there is absolutely a concern. We're seeing it in Los Angeles County. You're going to hear a lot more about that today, so I'm not going to take up your time with it. But we are seeing the filing of adult petitions for youth in SYTF and other juvenile facilities.

It's very concerning, and I think that a number of defenders and counties across the state are concerned that this is going to start happening in their counties as well. We want to prevent that. We want youth to be able to stay in SYTfs who are committed to SYTfs. And we want to understand that some of these behaviors are, in fact, a result of what's happening in the facilities. Right. Boredom.

I'm not excusing them, but I'm saying that there's boredom, there's a lack of programming, there's a lack of education.

And.

You'Re looking at a multi year potentially commitment.

Lots of people, poor living conditions, not much to do, leads to problems.

Precisely.

Sort of undercuts the reason why we have a juvenile program if all we're going to do is charge them and treat them as adults in the adult criminal system. Right?

Correct.

The prosecutors are making these decisions.

Prosecutors, yes. Probation for transfer petitions. Typically, we're seeing, those are crimes that happen in the community, and police are conducting an investigation, arresting young people and providing that information to the District Attorney's offices for in custody conduct. We're seeing that probation is making referrals to the District Attorney's offices, and they are charging or not based upon the information they're receiving from probation.

Well, I won't prolong it. It sounds like we're going to have more conversation about this today and probably in the future. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Question, Ms. Pink Lao mentioned some of the numbers. Compared to pre alignment and postalignment post alignment, we have approximately 880 youth lower than pre alignment. But I know staffing has been an issue. Can you share? Is that a new issue? Was staffing an issue pre alignment? Because if we have lower youth now, we should have a better ratio.

So it was an issue that was starting before realignment. Certainly we're seeing it potentially exacerbated because of either affecting retention and or being able to attract people to the profession. But it is, even with a lower number population. And yes, absolutely, with the ratios, it could impact it. But remember, we have a higher level need and in some situations, safety concerns. And so we were already suffering from staffing shortages across the board, and it's just hard to really promote this kind of work right now.

We're at the county level across the board in a lot of different areas, seeing those staffing shortages. We've been seeing it before realignment. We are seeing it continue through it, and we're looking at various different strategies to try to address some of that.

Could we talk a little bit about, and we'll hear more from rank and file individual later on. But some of the, from the chief's perspective, training overall, increased training, trauma informed training, to be honest, we don't want to avoid the conversation of this is a tough job.

It is a tough job. Absolutely not a job that I would want to do. So I understand it takes a certain individual to be in this job, and we want to make sure they are also human beings. We want to protect and have their self care be taken care of. What are we doing in that? If we protect and we provide services for pos, then hopefully by default they should be able to come into work with a better morale and so forth.

Right?

What are we doing in that realm?

Absolutely. And so it's one of the areas that actually we're very proud of because CPAC in particular, has been training on trauma informed care for many, many years.

And so the chiefs have, year after year, kind of prioritized it as something to work on and be sure that we're providing the tools to our staff to be able to deal with the tough aspects of the job, so more training is needed and being able to Fund that is needed and being able to make sure that, remember, when you're trying to train institution staff, they have to be out of the institution to do it.

It's some of the hardest staff to be able to train because of the ratios and being able to ensure if somebody's in training, you have to backfill that person in the facilities. But bottom mean, it's always kind of been difficult when we require high educational ba degree to get into probation, but yet they're some of the lowest paid in the law enforcement world. It's a hard job.

So like you say, they get all of this training and then it may make a lot more sense to go work in the educational setting. It may make more sense to go work in the health setting. So how do we try to address some of those things have been really, really a tough issue, not at all caused by realignment, but certainly just continues to exacerbate it as our populations become more complex.

Thank you. Senator Eggman, I don't know if you wanted.

Thank you. And I apologize for being late, and perhaps I missed a lot of this, but I sat on this Committee a couple of years and watched the disillusion of the former program and had two juvenile facilities in my district and spent a lot of, I mean, visited quite a few because a lot of my former students worked there. Right. So you had MSWs, LCSWs who were doing really innovative programming.

And so I guess I want to go back to the staff issue, and clearly there's a historic problem, I think it's fair to say, in LA County, especially as it relates to juvenile justice and issues. So what are you doing, and again, I apologize if you already, but what are you doing to change the culture and professionalize the staff? I think that's kind of what Senator Menjivar asked before.

But in a real, I mean, in my county right now, there's some special funding going in to grow your own.

So MSW programs, MFT programs. Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing to actually, and I understand you say it's hard. It's always been hard. It's always been a problem. But that's no answer anymore. We can't just say it's hard. This must be done. We're hurting kids. And I think the burnout makes it even more sense that people who are feeling disillusioned. Right. And like, they're just in a pit. So how do we change that?

Right.

Sure. And I certainly can't speak specifically to the LA issues. I think you're going to have some information later on in the panel that might provide some further insight on that. But I can tell you, and I'm sure you all are well aware of this. This didn't happen overnight, and it takes time to also get out of that part of the program.

We're also not seeing those exact type of issues in all the other counties and at that level, even though we are concerned about trying to make sure that we're backfilling our staffing shortages. But it's really not at probably the historic levels that LA is seeing and trying to. So as it relates to how you get out of something that has to come that far, I do think it's going to obviously take time and different innovative ideas around training. Training is the key.

Again, CPOC, because the chiefs have recognized that and dedicated that a big part of what our foundation does is provide that training and is really trying to also be sure that we are keeping the morale up. That's another really important thing, as you know, and in any profession. And so being sure that my testimony at the beginning was really trying to talk about, I mean, we can have as much data as you like.

If you don't really understand what's happening and hear those stories and light the way for positive peer pressure as to why culture should change, it's going to be much harder to do that. We're doing that. I think we're doing that really successfully in a lot of places. Your county is a shining example of that, quite frankly. And so I think we just need to do more of it, and we don't want to work backwards from that.

Remember, this is the last piece of the entire juvenile justice Continuum and the rest of the Continuum locals have been handling at that local level successfully in the way that it has been shrinking the footprint of detention. It has not seen a corresponding increase in crime. So how do we now take that to this next part of the Continuum? And there'll probably need to be new tools and new training associated with that.

Because if the staff previously was at the state level. Right. And then it's all going to shift to the counties, then the counties, really, it's incumbent upon them, especially with some of the other changes that the Legislature has undertaken. Really, really important to get the workforce up.

Absolutely.

Could I ask the same question my colleague asked and a response from Ms. Harris on the staffing, on training. I'd like to know, is there communication between the various community and service organizations on this issue with probation staff? Well, yes.

What we are hearing and seeing is that there is a resistance by probation staff to expanding community based programs that come into the juvenile hall facilities to run programs that probation is that different probation.

Sorry.

Probation is not one monolithic thing that different probation departments are attempting to run programs with their own staff, and those staff are not trained to provide programs in the way that community based organizations are trained to do them. Jasmine was talking about this in her opening remarks. There are cbos around the state.

The California alliance for Youth and Community justice is an organization that supports cbos all over the state that are ready and able to go into juvenile halls, to provide credible messengers, to provide trauma informed programming, to provide some therapeutic, rehabilitative programming. And we need a better partnership. We are asking for better partnerships with the probation departments to allow those groups into the facilities to do programming.

I just have one last question, Director Lucero. Next year we're going to be getting a report on the efficacy of the programs around old juvenile halls. Do you have any insight you can share with us now? Have you started collecting some of that data that you'll be reporting to us next year?

So the new data that is required from 505 requires touch points and information on program improvement. So the prior county plans did not require that. So that is one way that we are planning to be able to know more about the county's own assessments. We're also going to draw upon our ombuds data and where we're able to effectively provide technical assistance to ameliorate problems that we may be seeing in certain jurisdictions. And that's another way that we can measure progress.

Some counties actually publish annual reports, I think, at least, I don't know. I don't want to say the number. I think it's around 10, some of the larger jurisdictions. So we'll draw on available public data, we'll look at DOJ data, but with regard to programs, we're going to also look at our own initiatives, the less restrictive program initiative, the Workforce Development Initiative, the Ending Girls Incarceration Initiative.

So it's really going to be a very diverse approach in how we're going to be able to analyze and understand what has happened in 2025. Since the realignment and the complete closure of DJJ in June of 2023, we won't have things. And I'm still struggling to really figure out the recidivism piece because DJJ used to keep that information. I'm not sure right now who's the keeper of that information. It might be our new DOJ data, because I know that's an important piece. It's not everything, though.

We also want to know, are youth connected to their families? Are they leaving carceral settings with sustainable incomes or certifications that can allow them to begin work immediately? Are they going from carceral settings to college? There's a lot of things that we're going to be able to track also with rising scholars because we have an education Advisory Committee that is again, pulling together and helping us track data. There's a lot of data in the County Office of Education, Public Portals.

So we're going to be able to look at know literacy rates and math and reading. So we're looking, Senator, at a variety of ways to tell that story.

Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for participating in panel a. We're going to be moving on to panel two. Panel two is broken up into two subpanels. We'll have the first three speakers coming up. Colleagues, I ask if you have any questions for these first three speakers, let them be smaller ones. And we'll focus on the bigger questions for the entire panel after both of them are done.

So I'd like to welcome up from BSEC, the Board of State and Community Corrections, Kathleen Howard from ask me local 685. That represents some probation officers, Jonathan Bird and La probation Oversight Commissioner Melinda Kakani. Kakani I was righteous.

Great. We'll start. Kathleen, when you're ready.

Good morning. Good morning, Senators, Chairs and other Senators here today. Thank you for inviting me. My name is Katie Howard, and I'm the executive director of the Board of State and Community Corrections, BSCC. And I've been asked to talk today about the board's corrective action plan process and determinations of suitability, specifically focused on three of the juvenile facilities in LA County, Central Juvenile Hall, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf. And that facility has been both a juvenile hall and an SYTF, or secure youth treatment facility.

It's currently operating as an SYTF, and I'll go through that in a couple of minutes here. There has been a great deal of activity at the BSCC with our inspections, corrective action plans and suitability determinations in these LA facilities. So I'm going to offer a really fast, high-level summary about recent and upcoming board actions. So the BSCC is responsible for inspecting all of the local adult and juvenile detention facilities in California.

It's a very important part of our mission, and it obviously addresses the safety of young people and staff in these facilities. And, bottom line, when our inspections identify that a facility is out of compliance with any of the regulations, the facility is notified in an initial inspection report about an item of non-compliance, and then the facility is required to submit a corrective action plan or a cap to the BSCC that outlines how the facility will correct each item of non-compliance.

All of this is required by Welfare and Institutions Code Section 209, which states that the facility must have an approved cap within 60 days of the notice of non-compliance. Once the county has an approved cap, they have a 90-day period in which to remedy those items of non-compliance. And you had asked for information about the critical issues that were out of compliance in Central Juvenile Hall and BJN Juvenile Hall last year.

I'm not going to list every single one and give you a whole bunch of numbers. All this information is available on our website. But the issues primarily had to do with staffing, and the prior panel talked about some of those challenges. At BJN, the out-of-compliance issues related to staffing, fire safety, safety checks, room confinement, use of force, searches, education programs, programs, recreation, and exercise and discipline.

So a broad range of the operational issues in that facility. Very similar list of items of non-compliance persisted at Central Juvenile Hall, and after many different hearings and procedural steps, last year in May, May 2023, our board determined that these two juvenile halls were unsuitable for the confinement of minors. And then at that point, Los Angeles County had 60 days per WIC 203 to vacate those two juvenile halls and move the young people.

As I'm sure you're aware, LA County moved quickly to get Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall ready for the young people to be moved there within 60 days. That move was completed in late July of 2023, and we went into Los Padrinos in August of 2023 to inspect. It's our responsibility to stay on top of these things, and we have done so. There were items of non-compliance identified in that August inspection. LA County provided a cap. We approved that cap.

So it was in place as of October 16 of last year, and then the county had 90 days to make those corrections. On January 10 of this year, we received communication from LA County Probation Department stating that the corrective action plan had been completed in all areas. We went back to the facility and reinspected at Los Padrinos in late January and early February, and we determined that all of those items had not been corrected.

So the most current information lists, again, a really similar list of those items of non-compliance as had been present in the juvenile halls last year, remaining out of compliance at Los Padrinos. Again: staffing, youth supervision, staff orientation and training, their policy and procedure manual, fire safety plan, safety checks, room confinement, use of force, searches, education program, programs, recreation, exercise, and discipline.

Some of these are much more serious than others, as you can see, but that is a list of the remaining items that are out of compliance. I'd like to provide the current status information at BJN SYTF, and as you heard quite a bit in the prior panel, the secure youth treatment facility is a new type of local detention facility that came into being after DJJ realignment in SB 823.

And in general, as the last panel was discussing, SYTFs are commitment facilities for young people who would have gone to DJJ prior to realignment. And a commitment facility means a post-adjudication placement. In general terms, the juvenile hall facilities house young people who have not yet been through the trial process. You also heard today about the high levels of programming and treatment needs in the SYTF facilities.

So the BSCC did not have the legal authority under WIC 209 to make a suitability determination in all types of juvenile facilities until last year. So when we made that suitability determination about the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, the young people who were in the SYTF portion of that facility remained there, and it's still being operated in that way. So as soon as we had the legal authority to inspect in a way that would ultimately potentially lead to a suitability determination, we inspected BJN in August of last year, a pretty similar time frame to what I just went over with Los Padrinos.

We received and approved a corrective action plan as of October 9. The county had 90 days to make those corrections. On January 5 of this year, they provided verification that most of those items had been corrected. We did follow up inspections, and our review led us to conclude that there are still a number of items of non-compliance. Similar list to the others.

So that brings us to today and tomorrow. The BSCC meets tomorrow, and on our agenda is a determination of suitability for both Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and the Barry J. Nidorf SYTF. Again, all this information is available on our website. LA County has responded with some additional information, has made a variety of requests of the board, and we anticipate LA County representatives to be present at the board meeting tomorrow for discussion with our board. It really wouldn't be appropriate for me to speculate on what the board may do tomorrow, but I'm very happy to answer any process questions that you may have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We're going to move on to Mr. Byrd.

Thank you. Thank you, first of all, for inviting the rank and file. But I don't only represent the rank and file. We work closely with SEIU 721 Joint Council, who are supervisors, and also the directors, who is a part of AFSCME as well as we are. Sometimes messaging is difficult. In this era, there's a thing called being politically correct, and then there's also--created nowadays, reality shows that don't show reality.

And then lastly, I'll say: we've come to a point where alternative facts have taken the place of facts. And so sometime when it's messaging, it's a little difficult. So I was trying to figure out, "What should I say on behalf of the working men and women who work in probation?" Which will cross over to be partly proactive toward probation and may have somewhat of a bias. I will say there are certain terminologies that's being used in LA County.

Maybe not globally, but in LA County, for instance, there's alternative to incarceration. Probation--the men and women that work in probation, they've already considered themselves to be the alternative incarceration. For instance, we changed the name of camps to campus. In other words, given the indication that we give and provide something different than just incarcerating kids or youth and having them in custody. We consider ourselves to be the largest community-based organization there is. Why do I say that?

Over 80% of the men and women that work in Los Angeles County in probation are people of color. They come right out of the community. When they get the jobs, they don't go and move outside of the community. They work within the community. So it'd be very suspicious to think that as a probation officer, you would do something to damage your own community by trying to increase recidivism or trying to not give them the services that they need.

So I'm trying to give you the understanding of knowing what is embedded in the heart of a probation officer. The majority of us are educated. That doesn't mean we're necessarily successful in the ideology of juvenile justice, but it does mean that we can adapt. In other words, we go to college, we get a four-year degree, we are able to adapt.

So what we're saying about probation and the probation officer is: anything that you imagine that you want can be done through the lead of the probation department. The state has decided that probation is the entity, long time ago, that if you have youth that for some reason cannot succeed in the prevented measures, they sometimes have to be, excuse the word, "incarcerated." But the incarceration doesn't have to look like prison. It should look like something that provides hope. And therefore, the structures. We talked about the facilities.

What's the need of improvement in facilities? Yes, money have been given to facilities. I think I heard something on a case of $900 million, but that's divided throughout the state. I've been working in juvenile institutions for 32 years. When I first started, we were the highlight of probation in Los Angeles County. We actually hosted countries that would come over and try to find out what we did.

But even then, we were asking Los Angeles County to make changes to the structure, make it look more like a carefree, homelike environment. They refused. After a while, we had 19 camps, and then they decided they wanted to reduce it. That's fine. We know we reduced the population of incarceration by a large number over the years.

They don't give credit to probation, but we would like to think that as probation officers, what we gave to those who came into our custody when they went back home to their families, they decided that maybe they would share that message with their families and friends, and therefore there's a reduction in the incarceration. But when they reduced the camps, they also reduced the staffing inventory. In other words, in 2010, there were more than 4,400 members of probation in the rank and file.

Today, we have less than 2,600. Now, attrition we know happened, but what also happened is because the term probation or incarceration is looked at as a negative thing, therefore, no investment was made towards keeping staff who have the abilities, the seniority, the veteranship, however you want to term it, in the probation department, so many people have left. There was a period of time for over five years that the Board of Supervisors decided, "We'll put a hiring freeze on probation."

During that time, we lost many staff through attrition, and we have not been able to recover from that. I say that only to say that when it comes to the BSCC inspections and reviews, we understand that there are certain things that we have failed at. That failure comes from a shortage of staffing. I'll give you an example. There's a thing called a hall check. You go down and you check the door, and you make sure that you initial or you hit the new monitoring system.

Now, we fail at that. Why? Because we know that direct supervision over the youth that we have is more important than checking the door. So sometime, if you are critically short, it causes other problems that you will fail in. So I just give that as an example. But lastly--I know time is moving on--I will say that the investment in staff, as I said, most of them are well educated. They have the adaptability to training. I agree.

I disagree for something that I heard, that we don't want to be trained in the higher level forms of training necessary to provide therapeutic care. I have a daughter who majors in--she's a licensed clinical social worker. I know all about dialectical behavior therapy. Those things are embedded in the heart of probation officers. We want to give the best service that we can. Now, there is the elephant in the room. It's always the elephant in the room. And that elephant is: we have been publicized as child abusers, sex abusers, not going to work.

And I will say this. In any entity, in any organization, you may have some issues. We are a self-regulatory institution. In other words, what I mean by that, we are mandated to report anything we see that's out of character for a probation officer, and we do that on a large scale. Sometime you will have issues, but they have a process to take care of those issues. And if we have anybody in our institutions that do that type of thing, they need to be out.

Mr. Byrd, if you can wrap up, please.

I will wrap up. I will say this. I believe that probation and the probation officer is the lead into receiving or reimagining. I'll give this example, and you may not be religious, and you may not have heard the story, but there's a thing called the Tower of Babel, has to deal with the separation of languages. But the principle of that was: if they all spoke the same language, whatever they imagine--and I'll say reimagine--they can do. So when it comes to probation and CBOs and advocacies, if they would speak with the same language as the probation department and let probation be the lead to form these MDTs and incorporate people into our institutions to help, then there's nothing the State of California can't accomplish with the youth that we have. Thank you.

Ms. Milinda.

Thank you. Good morning once again. I'm Milinda Kakani, Director of Youth Justice at Children's Defense Fund California. I'm also Supervisor Holly Mitchell's appointee to the Probation Oversight Commission. But I'm giving my testimony largely in my capacity as a Director of Youth Justice at Children's Defense Fund. And while I don't spend my days working inside facilities in my role as Probation Oversight Commissioner, I've had the opportunity to visit them as recently as this past Sunday.

And I just want to start with the premise that caging our children, incarcerating them, detaining them, whatever verb you want to choose, is not normal. And we must consistently remind ourselves of that. And while I understand that there is a belief held by some that there will always be children who need this institution, I want to paint the picture that I'm left with every time I spend time in these facilities. Your horizon is filled with barbed wire.

Some of the units have day rooms that are a fraction of the size of this hearing room, meant to occupy the time of 15 to 20 young people. You have limited to no natural light. There are no windows that you can open, no clocks to mark the passing of the days, which are wildly wrote. The door to your bedroom, although cage oftentimes feels like a more appropriate word, locks behind you, and you have no power to open that door when you need to.

The door to fresh air is locked in front of you, with no control to smell the air just after it rains or after the grass is mowed. School often occurs in that aforementioned tiny day room where education is competing with video games. You're cuffed at your ankles and your wrists just to get your eyes checked or your wrist x-rayed. It actually does feel hopeless. It's cramped. It's stifled. It's suffocating. And this isn't just about the structures of the facilities.

These lives of these young people, they don't feel precious. They feel abandoned. No one really needs this institution. And one of the underlying principles of Senate Bill 823 was for counties to meet the needs of youth by implementing public health approaches to support positive youth development, building the capacity of a continuum of community-based approaches, and reducing crime by youth. At its core, public health promotes and protects the health of all people in their communities.

This science-based, evidence-backed field strives to give everyone a safe place to live, to learn, to work, to play. We're three years into this incredible vision, this call to action, this acknowledgment that the incarceration of children is a failed experiment. And yet we couldn't be further from where we need to be. In large part because instead of prioritizing our young people, their brilliance, their untapped potential, their healing, their joy, we've found ourselves in this cycle of trying to figure out how to humanely incarcerate them.

And we've diverted hundreds of millions of dollars, actually $1 billion, as you mentioned, Senator Menjivar, to juvenile carceral facilities in the name of rehabilitation, health and wellness. And you cannot get well in a cell. It's really not more complicated than that. I went to Berkeley for undergrad, and for whatever misguided reason, I decided to major in business. For those of you who know me, that's a bit comical. But there's a concept I remember being exposed to: return on investment.

And I want to talk about the investment that we're making in LA. We spend over $420,000,000 of our county budget on our juvenile institutions in LA County. That doesn't include the $88 million that came from the state that LA has received as part of the closure of DJJ, the $26 million that we're spending on security enhancements, the tens of millions we spent on fixing our facilities to meet the terms of the DOJ settlement we entered into in 2021 or the LA County Office of Education's juvenile court schools budget, or DMH's juvenile services budget. With 500 kids inside these facilities--one of the lowest numbers we've ever had--we're spending over $1 million a year on their incarceration. That's our investment. We've invested in an institution, not the success of young people.

And the return is atrocious. The return involves 39 young people facing new criminal charges because of the culture and environment they are subjected to in our carceral facilities. And that's just for the last six months. 36 young people, while they've been incarcerated at Los Padrinos and at Barry J. Nidorf, are now facing new criminal charges. Some adult some juvenile, but all because of the circumstances under which they're incarcerated.

The return involves nearly half of the probation staff calling out of their shifts at Los Padrinos on Super Bowl Sunday because this work is taking a toll on them, too. I was there on Sunday to do a staffing audit. Of the 60 staff that we were given, like, numbers to based on the unit, 26 were either being held over or had volunteered because they were aware that there were going to be call outs related to Super Bowl Sunday.

So these are 26 people, some who are what are called GSNs or night staff, right? So they don't really interact with these young folks. They've been up all night, and they're being asked to put in another 8 hours. Another--again, that was, I think, 14 or so--and then another 12 had just volunteered. And those were folks who are out in the community, who are field supervisors or field DPOs, who generally don't work inside the halls. But they're showing up because they care, but not because they necessarily have the skills to be inside halls and care for these young people. The return also involves absolutely no accounting for the $88 million the state has given to LA County for our kids who would have gone to DJJ.

The return is facilities that cannot even meet the most basic of minimum standards set forth by the BSCC. The return is kids hoarding empty milk cartons so that they have a place to urinate when staff can't or won't open their bedroom or cage doors. The return involves so much trauma, and I was a terrible business major, hated nearly every second of it.

But I can speak with confidence when I say this is a terrible return on our investment. A public health approach requires building out alternative stat. A public health approach requires really looking at the experience, the education, the opportunities we're spending our dollars on, and asking OYCR to track that spending, evaluate these programs, and assess the outcomes for our young people, not just by relying on county reporting, but by talking to all of the stakeholders and reporting on that. Because what happens in a county like LA, because it's a county family, public defenders, for example, aren't allowed to speak in contradiction to what they're seeing being done in the hands of the probation department.

Wow. I can listen to you for a full hour.

I can stop. Okay, sorry. I just want to wrap up really quickly. I just want to say a public health approach really requires incentivizing our county to surround our young people with humanity and care. We need to diversify the power. It cannot solely be in probation's hand to spend this money to think of solutions, to handle the education, to handle the reentry, to handle all the things. We need to diversify the power, and we need to diversify those investments, because the probation department cannot be the primary institution provided to meet the unmet needs of our Black and Brown young people.

Thank you so much. Colleagues, any initial thoughts before we bring up the rest of the panel? Senator Roth?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm taken by your remarks, ma'am. I came out of the military, so what gets measured gets done. And we believe in accountability and people being held accountable. So where does the buck stop here? Doesn't it stop with the Board of Supervisors?

I think the buck stops with both. Yeah. The probation department and the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors approves the budget for the probation department.

And the chief probation officer works for?

Board of Supervisors.

Board of Supervisors. I mean I want to pin the tail on the right donkey.

I agree with you. But also, right, I mean, the way the Welfare and Institutions Code lays out who holds the power and who runs these facilities, that's the probation department. So I think they go hand in hand. Yes, the Board of Supervisors approve a great deal.

I mean, they're all my friends, so I don't want them to think that I'm spanking them.

I mean, I'm appointed by one of them, right? And my ability to go inside the facilities and see what is happening on a regular basis is because of my appointment. But I entirely agree with you that the Board of Supervisors play a very large role in what is happening and what they are allowing to happen and where they decide to make their investments and what they decide to prioritize. But we are all responsible, right?

And I guess just one quick follow up. I guess you don't disagree that in some cases, some youth, at least in a temporary basis, need to spend time in a carceral setting, but that it's just the type of carceral setting that you're talking about?

Personally, I don't think any young person benefits from being in a carceral setting. You are only compounding their trauma. You're only normalizing what prison looks like. The number of young folks that I've talked to, whether they're in there for a violation for seven days or whether they're in there fighting their fitness for three years, can speak to the trauma that comes with being there just for one night. LA County has this beautiful vision that they've laid out called Youth Justice Reimagined.

That's obviously difficult to implement when we have Welfare and Institutions Code that mandates certain things be held by probation. But when we keep young folks in smaller settings, when they're cared for by folks who don't have to use OC spray, who don't have to use room confinement, who don't have to lock the door behind you, I think we can expect different outcomes.

Are there examples either in the United States or somewhere else in the world where youth who have committed offenses--because that's why they're there--perhaps more serious offenses, are treated in a different way in a home setting where it actually works?

New Zealand. Some of our colleagues actually spent some time in New Zealand looking at their system that I think is much more dedicated on the healing of young folks and recognizing the role that that plays in public safety, because, to be quite honest, what we've created right now does nothing for public safety. We're not making our communities safer, because when these young people leave--which fortunately most of them do, whether, again, it's after seven days or seven years--we haven't done much to ensure that they're not going to cycle right back into the system.

Very interesting. I've really enjoyed the conversation. I don't want to belabor the point, though, but thank you.

And New York also has a smaller kind of like, community-based approach.

Thank you. Thanks for your comments, all of you.

Well, that was--both your presentation and your conversation were very good, and that should be the background or the foundation of being on the Budget Committee over our CDCR. We've had many similar conversations as far as what's the vision that we should have? And we're talking about adults, and the very same thing applies, but a lot worse, I think, for children. And what is it that we really want to do here? We want to punish.

We want to add to the punishment, make it worse? Or how do we completely change this system so that it's not about how severe can the punishment be? We're having this debate about solitary confinement, how much solitary confinement is okay. So, anyway, I'd rather have that conversation than, I think, a lot of the details that we have to ask.

But I just want to ask, Mr. Byrd, if you can talk about the kind of training that probation officers receive, especially for working in the halls and in the camps. Is there training specific to youth needed for all officers? We have, maybe we got to call it something else. But I know San Quentin Project is now the California model. What is the real model and what kind of training is taking place?

Yes, I think the training has changed over the years since I've come in quite naturally. We have the acronym JCOT, which is juvenile correction officers training. That gives you six weeks of training to learn how to deescalate, how to talk, how to have relationships with those in your custody. Also, it deals with accountability. That doesn't necessarily meet the new SYTF, as we believe.

We believe those who are committed to the SYTF need a higher level training because they're what we would call more sophisticated or have committed more serious crimes. Sometimes that mentality, you need to step up your ability to deal with them in those settings. I will say also, that one of the things we've always advocated for was a modernized training center in LA County. We train in a dilapidated elementary school that even you wouldn't put elementary kids in and try to give adequate training.

It doesn't have the modernized technology. It's kind of demoralizing when you go there just to listen, because you're in trailers and things of that sort. So training is very important. I believe the Board of Supervisors has finally given the chief the ability to look for a new training center and maybe training from some of the colleges. We have not reached that point yet because we keep dealing with the critical issue of staffing.

But I also say a lot of the training that we need to deal with juveniles come right from where you come from. And what I mean by that--again, I will say that we come out of the communities. I didn't go to Berkeley. I went to USC, and I majored in business, but it didn't keep me from understanding how to work with those in my community that I lived in.

And so a lot of times, your inherent training is one of the most important tools, because the youth you're dealing with are your neighbors. And sometime--I heard Mr. Roth talk about incarceration in his questioning, whether it's valid or not. There's a thing called a credible messenger, right? And we say they are credible because they have experience. So they use that term to say that their experience in being incarcerated helps them to come back and talk to youth and help them to avoid incarceration or not to recidivate. We have a thing amongst our probation officers called a credible messenger. And it simply goes like this.

If I grew up in the community that I represent, and I go and I accomplish something in my life, whether it be education, vocation skills, or whatever, is that a credible messenger to the youth that come into our presence? So there's all types of training necessary to keep people from youth from recidivating. And I think one of the greatest effects that we have as probation officers who have the desire for years to make it an occupation, though it's very rewarding, is that self training that you get from growing up in your own community. You can't leave that out of the situation.

And lastly, I'll say: after 30 years, think about it--if I had somebody in my custody 15 years ago, they are now 30. Or they're 32-40 years old. And we see them every day in our communities. And they thank the probation officers. But we cannot publicize that because most people that come through the system, they don't want you to know they came through the system. That's why we even have expunged laws that try to keep everybody from knowing. But I will say this. My wife is disabled, and she went to a pain management doctor the other day, and he asked, "What does your husband do?" And she said, "He's a probation officer."

He said, "I would like to talk to him because I was on probation when I was growing up, and now I'm a doctor, and I'd like to see if I could find a probation officer who changed my life." So I want you to know, training comes inherent, it comes through education and it comes from the systems that we design to help advance the training that we have. Thank you.

No questions, just some thoughts here. You know, I think, Senator Roth, when you asked about where the buck stops--I think, yes, Board of Supervisors overarching. But for each probation officer, the buck kind of stops with them individually, right? You shared, Mr. Byrd, regarding before LA County was like this model, people would come and learn about it, but at that very same time, hundreds of youth were being sexually assaulted.

And we only found out till years later at the time where LA model, the LA was a good model. Just last year, we saw the news about 200-300 people filed a suit against LA County for sexual assaults. Staffing shortages have nothing to do with the last month, eight probation officers being put on leave for hosting fight clubs at Los Padrinos. That has nothing to do with shorting staffages. If you have less staff, you shouldn't have the time to host a fight club.

In fact, that means you're busier doing other things that you're supposed to do. You spoke also, Mr. Byrd, regarding sometimes it's not--and correct me if I misunderstood this--not as important to check a door because there are other more pressing things. We had a kid overdose at Barry J. because the PO did not check their doors throughout the night. So when I hear these comments, there's no more excuses of staffing shortages. And we should be the only entity overseeing these youth, if for decades we've entrusted our youth in this one particular entity.

I'm not looking to dismantle the system. I'm just looking to see what other support we can bring into this system to work collaboratively with probation officers across the State of California. Because I think we need help. And you may have a daughter who is a LCSW, and you are privileged enough to have the information that other people don't have. I'm an MSW. I'm privileged enough to understand social systems.

But just because someone has a BA does not mean--or they get 8 hours, 16 hours of trauma-informed care. This term, "trauma-informed," gets thrown around so loosely that it has no more value of what trauma-informed care is, because we're seeing probation officers getting more training at Camp Kilpatrick than we do at Barry J. We're seeing probation officers who are just starting in this line of work get thrown at Los Padrinos, kind of like a hazing process.

"We're going to toughen you up here." Versus I would like to start off in a softer place, where I learn actual ways to communicate with these youth and then go to Los Padrinos to then take that work with me. So those are my initial thoughts when I'm hearing this. Ms. Kakani, I think your words are going to sit with me forever. I think, "You cannot get well in a cell," is something that we should all sit with. So we're going to save the rest of our questions for the rest of the--after we're done with the next panel. So we can get sub panel B up here, please.

Joining us here on top panel b are two individuals with previous experience, Tony Brown, who is now a student at Cal Poly Pomona with lived experiences, and Magic Mckay, a student at UC Berkeley with lived experiences, along with Judge Miguel Espinoza from LA Juvenile Court, Rhyzan Croomes from Loyola Law School Juvenile Justice Clinic, and Scott Budnick, the founder of Anti Recidivism Coalition. We'll start with Mr. Brown.

Is it on already? All right, good. All right, so first and foremost, good morning to all in attendance, as well as I want to show my gratitude for inviting me to this wonderful event. My name is Tony Brown. I'm a Cal Poly Pomona student studying animal science. I am also a change agent with the prison education project, where I go back into LA County juvenile detention centers as well as go abroad to teach Intro to College, Soft Skills, and Career Development.

I would also like to mention my success is in spite of probation, not because of probation. I chose to rise above all adversity and approach each opportunity with determination and ambition. I found my potential within a sale. I was detained at the age of 14 with a charge of murder. Recently released on March eighth of last year after serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.

Probation has allocated millions of dollars in funds where they are set to make a payment plan for the youth and provide rehabilitative services. After taking countless hours of finding this funding plan to seek and understand why there are very little to no programs and where this money was actually going, well, according to the funding plan for SYTF services, which can be found under lacounty.gov. So, first and foremost, I would like to speak about the dog now.

Like I said, I was incarcerated in Barry J. Nardor for seven years. I was in the compound the whole know a very traumatic situation. It was very detrimental to the success of youth. Very traumatic as well. And one of the biggest things I noticed was it was a lack of programming. So I'm like, okay, how can we benefit as youth and also find something to heal our trauma outside of mental health services?

So, I decided to write a proposal for the dog training program, which became a mandatory program in Barry J. Nyder Juvenile Hall as well as Campus Kilpatrick. And it started in late 2022, but the program ended up falling short mid of 2023 after I was released due to the irresponsible usage of the funds by Los Angeles County probation. At times, I do feel socially displaced due to the fact that I served seven years, seven and a half in total.

If you're including Campus Kilpatrick inside of a juvenile detention facility. I feel most comfortable when I work and train with dogs due to the lack of daily societal deeds and interactions with other people that want to succeed and grow like me. In addition to that, when you speak on employment, the probation department offers kitchen patrol as an employment deed. There was no other vocational program, such as when you talk about Hawaii, which I just came back from after teaching Intro to College. They offer welding -

- they offer them agricultural deeds, such as working in their farms, working in their gardens, and things of that nature. They also work with animals like horses. They want to get a dog program, but they don't have significant funding like Los Angeles County probation does when you talk about the safety of the youth, so I was housed when SYTF first opened in the housing unit, Unit X. It felt so much similar to DJJ, not that I was housed in DJJ, but hearing all the events.

I had a brother that was incarcerated there, but as I walked into this unit, windows were boarded up, doors were broken, youth were all over the place, graffiti everywhere. Fights would break out. I was involved in a riot, not at my own will. I was forced into this riot, being targeted by other youth coming out of college. A very safe space where I felt I can avoid all of this: drugs, fights, just gang violence.

From there, I was also jumped coming from college, mental health was also frightened. Staff didn't know how to keep the situation under control. Youth always had their heads on a swivel, wondering, am I going to be next? Who's going to attack me? What's going on? It was very traumatic.

Programming when I talk about programs, the main programs I look forward to most are Healing Dialogue and Action, Anti Recidivism Coalition, as well as Inside-out Writers, which have taught me how to be creative and utilize my power of words through the poetry I write. These two programs have been actively involved in the youth journeys behind the walls and during our transitions to be productive citizens to our communities. I would also like to shout out to each member of HDA for the outings and great experiences.

I also want to extend my gratitude to ARC for the same thing, but for also paying for me to go to Hawaii this past January, and I'm also going to London in March. Another program I would like to extend my gratitude to is Marley's Much Positive Change Program, to which I also helped write the proposal to get them in there, as well as Pause for Life within Sylmar Juvenile Hall. These programs have been very beneficial.

These programs have been very beneficial because they have taught us skills to be great people to learn from great reentry resources. And one of the programs I've been talking to many staff about reimplementing was the sports program. This allows the youth who have come from athletic backgrounds, such as myself, who have played basketball, to now show their true potential and talent to possibly get recruited by colleges. Sports create brotherhood, sisterhood. Separate as five fingers, and one is the hand.

Together, we come into unity, which creates community. We need to start implementing better vocational training, like I said, like welding, construction, and culinary. These are hands-on skills that the youth can be taught and used to help build resumes. Agriculture is also very important. In conclusion to that, I would like to have a call of action that both Barry J. Nidorf and Campus Kilpatrick continue funding both Pause for Life and Positive Change. Like I said, sometimes I feel socially displaced.

Even on a college campus at Cal Poly Pomona, I feel socially displaced because I wasn't exposed to too much positive interaction while incarcerated. In addition to that, I would also like to extend my gratitude to each employee of the probation department who has worked with me and helped me pursue my dreams. The staff individually worked with the youth, but probation continued to hold them back, one of them being senior detention officers; rest in peace, Kendall Good, Ms. Dixon, Laurenda Garrett, William Simpson, Raphael Ventura -

Miriam Smiley, Michelle Medina, Timothy Viaz, Ms. Collins, Ms. Aldaz: I thank you all. I also would like to extend my gratitude to my attorney, Liz Bronstein. Thank you for this opportunity. My honorable judge, Mario Barrera. I would also like to thank Mr. Miguel Espinoza for also being in attendance. Angela Zaragosa. Thank you, Scott Bunnick, Edwin Paraga, Zach Scowl, and so many other people within my journey. I just honestly want to say thank you to all of them.

And I want to say thank you as well, board members, for allowing me this experience.

Thank you so much, Mr. Brown. We're going to move on to Mr. McKay's.

Yes, hello, my name is Monte Magic Mckay. I'm 21 years old, currently attending UC Berkeley as a comparative literature and filmmaker while minoring and creative writing. When I was 17 years old, I was arrested for second-degree murder. As I was fighting my sentence, I was almost certainly going to lose. In turn, I would have ended up spending a major portion of my life in adult prison. Fortunately, I was saved by the bell.

With the closure of DJ Jay's realignment, George Gascone's orders, and my transfer to SYTF, I was provided the opportunity to rise above my situation. Most people facing the prison sentence don't get the opportunity to go to a place like Camp Kilpatrick or get the support of a network that helps them find their dreams and then go achieve them. My case was a very special one. I was able to slip through the cracks through a highly circumstantial and extremely improbable string of events.

It doesn't and shouldn't have to be that way for everyone. All youth passing through the system can and should be provided the opportunity to see the success that I have and then some. The system shouldn't make it harder for you to hurdle the barriers. It should assist in directing past those barriers. The main reason I've been able to make this.

Excuse me, the main reason I've been able to make the best out of what I was given was because there were people who saw my potential and were able to guide me. Sure, I had the ambition, and the truth is there are hundreds of youth just like me who get overlooked and undermined. These systems and institutions can be designed to pave a way for healing, rehabilitation, and prosperity for everyone.

It was community-based organizations and incredible messengers who assisted me in my journey while inside. It was Judge Espinoza who recognized my hard work. It was Raphael Ventura. It was Elizabeth Bronstein, Timothy Vias, Kevin Delamico, Eric Nations, and a few other Karen probation officers who believed in me. It was a woman named Pat Sonaga, a school staff member at Camp Kilpatrick, who assisted me in applying to four-year universities.

Pat spent hours with me revising my course plans, applying for scholarships, and looking for resources to ensure I was well-equipped for my next journey. She kept me motivated by reassuring me when I shared my doubts and encouraged me to never quit. Without her and her assistance, I might not have received my AA degree in social and behavioral sciences or have been able to transfer to Cal. I might not have been accepted to every single university I applied to.

It was Mr. Castendyke who would indulge me in discussions about quantum physics, philosophy, religion, psychology, history, literature and art. Before class started, it was those conversations that inspired me to seek higher education. Some of those people I might have never crossed paths with had I been sent to DJJ. Had I not met them, I wouldn't be in the position I am in today.

It was ARC that helped pay for my mother's funeral, provided me with a scholarship, connected me with jobs, took me to different states, and helped me find housing. It was HDA that helped me process my traumas, understand the extent of my decisions, develop emotional regulation, and connect me to mental health resources. Upon release, it was Inside Outriders that helped me grasp and channel my passion for storytelling. It was Jailhouse Guitars that pushed me to find peace in music.

With individualized plans, emotional intelligence, assigned mentors, career training, a proper and sufficient education, and financial literacy, youth would be prepared to reenter the community as model citizens every day. These kids should be planning to enter the world, the free world. High-achieving, healed, and rehabilitated role models for the next generation. They should not leave out worse than they came in like the many before them, surrounded by violence and disorder; many were forced to adapt to their surroundings.

How about we surround them around things and people that positively influence them? Upon release, many weren't able to properly address to the world around them and reoffend it. Why? Because of a lack of attention, structure, guidance, and love. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to anything. Not everyone shares the same stories, talents, lifestyles, ambitions, or upbringing. Each youth should have an individualized plan tailored to their specific needs and concerns.

These youth deserve to be in conducive environments, places that foster positivity and growth, surrounded by people who care about their future and well-being despite their mistakes. God, excuse me. Continue to fund HDA - I'm Sick - Healing Dialogue and Action, Anti Recidivism Coalition, Actors Gang, Inside Out Writers, Pause for Life, Marley's Mutts, Jailhouse Guitar Doors, and other community-based organizations that follow individuals as they enter the community. Hire more staff that care. Ensure the success of each youth, even the hardheads.

Even the ones who seem like lost causes. Can I cuss? Even the f-ups. Because each has a story to tell and something meaningful to bring to society. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mckay. Judge, we're going to move on to you.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Before we end with Magic, I would just like to say that he had a huge day yesterday. His journey with the juvenile justice system formally ended yesterday when he had his case sealed, and that is the biggest day you can have. Congratulations, Magic and Tony, it's an honor to be seated up here with you today. My name is Miguel Espinoza, and I'm the supervising judge of the 14 juvenile justice courts in LA County for the past two years.

I've also supervised one of four SYTF hub courts. Prior to my appointment, I was a local prosecutor with the DA's office and also an assistant United States attorney. Thank you, Senators, for having me. I have to say, your staff are excellent. I've never testified before, and they made this a very seamless experience, and so I'd really like to thank them for that. Senator, in a past life -

- I was a longtime aide to Mayor Villaraigosa, and there's no reason you would remember this, but more than 20 years ago, I ended up at your house. This was while Mr. Contreras was still with us. And I was a young staffer, and I sat back, and I listened to you engage about how to improve the lives of working families on the east side. And that had a huge impact on me.

It's one of the main reasons that I joined a union-side labor law firm when I first entered the law. I come from a family of union members, mostly teachers and nurses, and I was a member of a union myself. Thank you for everything that you do. Of the various issues being discussed today, I'll start with one that brings me optimism. Almost exactly one year ago, we began transferring youth from DJJ to LA County. I personally oversaw this litigation.

Throughout the past year, the court has forged a strong partnership with the DA, defense bar, and probation as we determined the most appropriate placement for the approximately 100 youth who had either not yet completed their baseline terms at DJJ or had recently reentered the community. This was an immensely challenging experience, but it has resulted in one of the most collaborative and trauma-informed, truly, I believe, trauma-informed partnerships that I've seen during my 15 years working in criminal justice.

Over the past year, I've traveled the state with our partners, including some of your staff members down in Los Angeles, to develop and strengthen relationships with subject matter experts in youth rehabilitation, like the nationally renowned Anti Recitivism Coalition founded by Scott Budnick. I think there is no single person who has had a greater impact probably on youth rehabilitation than Mr. Budnick. Several of our partner organizations offer less restrictive placements where youth reside and receive supportive services.

ARC's Magnolia House is the gold standard in this space, and we have kept those beds full, and we've had a lot of success, much of it possible through the support of Judge Lucero and her team. Thank you, Judge Lucero, for your strong support on a weekly basis. Magic and Tony are two shining examples of how well youth can do when supported in the community. Both of these young men were at placements in LA County.

The model that we've developed for DJJ youth has been so promising that it has provided a roadmap for SYTF youth, many of whom are now living at these same less restrictive placements and thriving. The collaboration in our court has also been so forward-thinking, in fact, that the lawyers who comprise our SYTF team, as Judge Lacero referenced, have been awarded an OICR grant to train similar teams across the state. Ms. Saragosa and Ms. Bronstein are two of those attorneys, and they're here with us today.

These placements have given us great reason for optimism, but realignment has also exacerbated the single greatest threat to our youth. Our caseloads have increased significantly due to realignment, including dozens of SYTF hearings each week. This adds to an already busy docket in which the court makes thousands of decisions each year, directly impacting the liberty of our kids.

Most of the pressing issues discussed here today are subject to litigation in a courtroom, where the court ultimately renders a decision that is subject to appellate review, decisions to remove children from their homes, decisions to address violence, use of force, and contraband in the hall, decisions regarding access to education and mental health services, decisions to find youth competent to stand trial, decisions to transfer youth to adult court, where, if they're convicted in the adult court, they may spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Testimony from families of murder victims and survivors of sexual assault hard to imagine more weighty litigation. Harder still to imagine engaging in such litigation without a transcript of the proceedings, leaving our youth with no recourse to challenge these fateful decisions. Yet that unconscionable scenario is nearly upon us Senators. Last year, because of the ongoing court reporter shortage, more than 330,000 hearings took place in LA County without any transcript, rendering appeal impossible. These hearings involve life-changing issues such as divorce, child custody, and domestic violence.

This is a constitutional crisis, and it's coming for our kids. This time last year, our presiding judge and executive officer leveraged nearly 10 million in state funding to address the shortage. The court later substantially increased recruitment and retainment bonuses, including a $50,000 signing bonus, generous student loan and equipment allowances, up to $10,000 in retention bonuses, and a $25,000 finders fee for court employees who bring court reporters to the court. These abundant outlays of cash have barely allowed the court to maintain its current reporter staffing.

Since the court announced its incentives last year, 18 court reporters have left court service, and 11 have joined, resulting in a net loss of seven as of December. Despite spending millions, our court still has a vacancy rate of over 100 court reporters. SB 662, recently held in the Senate Appropriations Committee, would have addressed this crisis by providing for electronic recordings in certain case types, including civil, but only when a court reporter is not available.

With your focus on public safety in the judiciary and your oversight of realignment, I felt compelled to mention the detrimental impact this issue continues to have on access to justice up and down the state. I make this request on behalf of the community and the thousands of children who rely on the wisdom of bodies such as this to ensure they are afforded basic legal protections like a transcript of their proceedings.

There is no greater single threat to our youth, in my estimation, than the court reporter crisis because it directly impacts our ability to address each of the other very urgent issues that we are discussing here today. That concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, Senators and members of the committee. My name is Rhyzan Croomes, and I'm an attorney with the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy Juvenile Justice Clinic. I'm here as a juvenile attorney to speak about Los Angeles realignment and the experiences my clients and colleagues have had since the transition. On the morning of May 9, 2023, I received a frantic call from a client of mine.

Prior to any news articles or reports that would later be written, he told me that an SYTF youth had been found dead that morning at Barry J. He informed me that this boy had died from an overdose and, due to staffing oversight, was not found in time to save his life. My client knew these details because the tragic and avoidable death of Brian Diaz occurred in his unit.

Upon learning this information, we immediately filed to have our clients released from SYTF and placed in a step-down facility, step-down facilities that we quickly learned did not exist. On the dates of the hearings, our clients pledged to the judges to let them out. To say they were terrified is an understatement. In their pleas, they said that they didn't feel safe and that they were afraid. They were scared that no matter what the kids said about the conditions, people wouldn't listen.

They were scared that the lack of oversight would mean that they wouldn't make it out of the facility alive. And most importantly, they were scared that they would be next. I recall a young person often raising their voice during hearings, begging for the court to listen to what was really going on at Barry J. They talked about children soiling themselves or using water bottles to urinate at night because staff was not present to open the doors.

They talked about multiple occasions of young people being injured without aid from staff. They talked about the lack of outside time and how kids were locked in the dayroom for countless hours, unable to simply stretch their legs. They also talked about the lack of schooling and services provided in SYTF and how all they received was packet learning and inconsistent access to education or educators, for that matter, and how there was minimal ability to do well in programming since there was limited programming available.

Over the next few weeks, we filed every order we could think of, including orders to simply allow our clients to go outside and see the sun. All orders that were granted by the court and all orders that were ignored by the Department. I wish I could say that this was the end of the problems young people experience while detained in SYTF, but it isn't.

Many have gone through periods of case and court disruptions, some due to probation officer suspensions, including allegations of officers distributing fentanyl-laced drugs to detained kids, some due to probation's modified duty assignments where staff show up to SYTF but have no interaction with young people detained and almost all due to the lack of step down or reentry planning -

- where the onus is 100% on defense attorneys to find services, find adequate housing, make sure their schooling is in place when they reenter, make sure therapy is in place, and above all, to make sure there is an ability for these young people to succeed outside of detention. Following the tragic death of Brian Diaz, who was detained in SYTF, this facility was deemed unsuitable on the juvenile hall side. All youth removed except for the SYTF youth.

Youth who to this day are still dealing with the trauma that comes from seeing someone so young deceased in the place they lay their head down at night. So when I think about the problems or failures that persist, the common thread is that there's just no true desire by the department to rehabilitate these youth. Their lives are not valued. Their potential is not a priority.

Yes, there are a handful of staff who take seriously the responsibility of the care of these young people, but even they are so overwhelmed that they cannot keep up. These instances are not isolated and are representative of the larger issue, which is our reliance on the department to serve our young people when they cannot achieve the bare minimum. The goal of SB 823 was to reduce reliance on incarceration and expand community-based options for youth.

This goal can absolutely be achieved by making a fundamental shift in Los Angeles County and investing in community services, services that are not probation led and allow for community based step downs, opportunities for youth to pursue a higher education or learn skills that will lead to employment and a dedicated living wage for young people. Upon termination of SYTF, we have an opportunity to learn from what is happening in Los Angeles and move juvenile justice toward a rehabilitative, trauma informed and developmentally appropriate system.

But we cannot do that by throwing money towards the wrong, unchecked departments or as my colleague Millie had said, the worst return on investment. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Our final panelists in this panel. Scott, hi.

Thank you for having me. I'm on the BSCC. I'm recused from the LA vote, so I can speak openly, not as a BSCC member and not on behalf of ARC, but speaking on behalf of myself, who have been in these juvenile halls in Barry J. Nidorf every week for 20 years. My 20-year anniversary was last week. I got to watch these two fine gentlemen every week of their growth while they were in there, and it was insanely impressive to watch right now.

What we have today in LA, in SYTF, I cannot say is any better than the failure of DJJ. Not for rehabilitation, not for public safety, not for the healing of victims, and definitely not for the transformation and change of the young people that are there. Just to give you an overview of where we're at in Los Angeles, currently today at Barry J. Nydorf, which is the main SYTF hub, there's 54 youth. When I started there, there were 600.

There's 54 youth, SYTF youth in Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall. There's 20 in Camp Kilpatrick, and there's six at Pine Grove, which is run by CDCR, which is the fire camp. So, in all of SYTF, we're talking about 80 young people. Compare that to the 300 predispo youth; they're sitting in Los Pedrinos right now, and because of all of those issues, the department's focus is almost all in Los Pedrinos.

And we really don't see much of upper management at Barry J, where the SYTF population is all because there's so many fires to be put out at LP, giving you a little bit of the history. 2022, early 2023, start of SYTF: the conditions were abysmal as an understatement. Incredibly high amounts of violence and staff assaults. No programs, literally. These guys can attest. The fact that they made it out of Unit X and didn't die or weren't hurt very bad is a miracle.

They would sit during the day; they would wake up at eight in the morning and sit in the day room playing video games and watching TV until they went to bed at 09:00 at night: never ever going outside, never going to school, never going anywhere. There were no programs in that year. In x, there were probably eight staff walked out for bringing in drugs or having sex with minors. And then my mentee, Brian Diaz, died from a fentanyl overdose.

And the day before he died, I walked into Unit X, was wondering where a lot of the kids were. There were two staff sitting in the day room that I'd never seen before. I started pushing doors open. All the doors are supposed to locked. And there's six kids in one room with a bunch of pills, cut up, sniffing pills with the two staff sitting in the dayroom, and then walk to the bathroom. There's four kids in the bathroom.

There's only supposed to be one person in the bathroom at a time. There's four youth in the bathroom smoking weed together. And we have two staff in the day room, one senior in the middle and a staff member on the other side. All who had started work in LA County probation two weeks prior. They were terrified. I stopped the guys from sniffing the pills.

I reported it to staff, and the next day, we got the call at seven in the morning that 18-year-old Brian Diaz was found dead in his cell. That's the history here. A few months ago, four or five, six months ago, all the predisposition youth were moved to LP. And so, instead of running a 300-person facility at Barry J. Nydorf, there's now a 54-person facility. Conditions are better. Are they better than DJJ? I can't say that, but they're better.

There's a new management team that's there that have made things better. But if we look at what worked and didn't work in DJJ and what's working and not working in SYTF, I think it's very clear the staffing shortage affects everything. Even if we had programs, the ability to escort youth to programs, when only 11% of staff are showing up to work, that sometimes becomes impossible.

So the program could be there, but to get them from the unit to the chapel or the unit to a classroom can't happen because there's no staff to do the escort. But I will say one massive difference that we have in LA probation than DJJ is if you ask any kid that was in DJJ what percentage of the staff cared about you, you'll never hear more than 5%.

Even the best kids who program the best, they would say, in DJJ, only 5% of the staff cared about us. And if we all know that people's lives change because of the human beings that are in their life, right? LA County probation. The people that are showing up to work every day are unbelievable. For the most part, they are great. They've weeded out a lot of really bad people who have weeded out themselves.

There's still some bad apples, but overall, as these guys have mentioned, some staff, there's some very good staff there, but the shortage of staff much better than DJJ staff-wise, quality-wise, caring-wise, hope-wise. But the staffing numbers are horrible. Programs way below DJJ levels. DJJ, you go to computer coding. At the last mile, you can get a construction vocational class, culinary vocational class. I can keep going on and on and on because it's a facility that was built for that.

Lots of space, et cetera. Here, nothing. Just like you said, Senator Menjivar, empty culinary training school kitchen in Kilpatrick, empty wood shop at Kilpatrick, empty vogue space at Barry J. Nidorf. Nothing happening. Nothing to prepare these guys for when they walk out the door. There are college classes, and there are people that have followed the trailblazer of Tony Brown and Monty Mckay and getting their AA degree there.

One issue that hasn't been brought up today is that in DJJ, to get out, you went to a parole board, and it was clear what you needed to do to get through that board. Here, there is no transparency and me and Judge Espinoza had this conversation this morning, and I think a lot of people are feeling this way. There's a lot of lack of transparency in what the step down, step-out process is.

And I don't know any other county other than LA, but I'm sure different counties are doing different things about how and when to choose when a youth is ready to step down out of the facility. DJ. One of DJ's only bright spots was their sex offender behavior treatment. They're one of the best in the nation. LA County probation has zero. If you're a sex offender in LA County probation, you get zero treatment the entire time, and you get out with zero treatment. Nothing. Zero.

And so, just to conclude with some potential thoughts, recommendations, and things to think about. One, are there SYTF programs that can be run not by probation departments, maybe in partnership with probation departments, maybe run by a CBO nonprofit organization, therapy, mental health organization, behavioral health organization, et cetera? Two, when you look at programs like Pine Grove, which is not run by LA County probation. I've seen everything in the world.

I've never seen a vocational training program better than the Pine Grove fire camp that leads to a firefighter career in CAL FIRE. Or if you don't decide to pursue that path, gives you the discipline and the belief in yourself that you can accomplish anything, that you will accomplish whatever you do when you get out. That's why the recidivism rate is so much lower.

Can we have more statewide programs like Pine Grove send youth to more victims and restorative justice programs to help victims heal from these crimes and also make sure these guys understand the pain that they've caused so they never want to cause it again? And again, figuring out clarity and transparency around the step down in reentry process. Thank you.

Yes, I agree with you, Senator Dura, big breaths. In any initial thoughts? If not, I'm going to jump in some questions. Okay. Judge Espinoza, can you break down the process? Does a youth, before they get down to a step- down facility, the ones that exist, do they have to come back to the court to get approval for that?

In LA County, we follow the protocols set forth in Welfare and Institutions Code section 875. When a youth is committed to the secure youth treatment facility, they are afforded a hearing at least every six months. It usually works out in our courts that we're seeing our youth every month, every three months, and at the six-month mark for a review hearing where, through their attorney, they can request a reduction in their baseline term.

It is through that process that the court works with the attorneys in that collaborative model that Judge Lucero described to see how the youth is doing with the programming that has been set forth in the IRP. To answer your question: yes, to be released. That is a decision that's made by the court at one of these hearings.

The reason why I ask: we heard some of the numbers, 20 youth at Camp KP56? 54 at Barry J. And approximately 300 of LP. Numbers are very off at Camp LP. At Camp KP, we have the ability to have approximately 60 youth there. I'm wondering, are we getting enough cases coming down to court to say, "Hey, this youth can go from Barry J. now to Camp KP?"

Because I will be honest with you, I'm hearing that there was a deal with the NIMBYs of Malibu that they would not put more youth in there because the rich and the famous do not want the youth there and instead, they want to keep them at Barry J. In my area, where it's communities of working class that don't have the time to come and share how they feel about the black and brown kids in Somar.

We know that the programming offered at Camp Kilpatrick provides a better environment than that of Barry J. We know that. And this is why you're asking the question: how do we get more kids over to Camp Kilpatrick? Senator, I do not know the entire political backstory as to why there is not increased capacity, but I have been -

Let me refrain. Are judges aware that they can send more kids to camp KP when the cases get brought up to them for a step-down?

I was under the impression that there was a limit somewhere around 18 or 20.

Which shouldn't be a limit. I want to figure out how we can go past that invisible limit because the actual limit is around 60. So if we can work on figuring out how we can get more kids in there because that's where I saw a kid when I first visited Barry J. David. And then I saw him when I then visited Camp KP. He had already transferred over, and his personality was night and day. I need to see more kids like that.

And I am not going to be here to cater to the rich and famous because they don't want more kids at these facilities for them to be successful. So, this imaginary 20 max cannot exist. And OYCR, as we're hearing this, we need to ensure we get more kids in there for the judges to know that this isn't in statue, that they need to send more kids there.

Yes. And the young man that you've described is not an isolated young man. That's what we see with most of the young people who go to Camp Kilpatrick. And if there's a way for you and OYCR to assist in the increasing of capacity, that would be welcomed.

Great. Comment?

Should we talk more about Kilpatrick, capacity or no?

Yes.

Okay. It is the community. It is the community of Malibu and the Cog that exists on the communities around there. I've been meeting with a lot of those folks just wanting to meet with city council folks, stuff around the local community, as well as all of the neighbors and neighboring businesses around Camp Kilpatrick. The difference I hear from the people on the ground that actually live there and live around the facility, they love it, they want it. They have no issue with more kids.

It is the political leaders who are, and probably just a small handful of political leaders, that are being very loud on it. I will say this. When and before they were going to move the youth to Kilpatrick when it blew up politically, there were some security issues that were noted by the BSCC that made the facility out of compliance from a structural point of view, even a perimeter fence that had fallen down.

So that created some fear in the neighborhood that a fence had fallen down around a secure facility in their neighborhood that I'm told has been addressed. And there was issues of staffing. Do they have the number of staff to increase the capacity to 30,40,50? I think, at this point, the answer is absolutely yes. I think there is nothing stopping the facility from going to 30,40,50 other than, at this point, political will.

I'm sorry, I don't want to keep with this hearing just on that one issue, but where is that final decision to increase the usage? I don't understand how this can go on and on. Somebody's got to be in a position to say, we're going to add more of our youth there.

I think it would be the Chief of Probation and Supervisor Horvath, whose district it's in, and Supervisor Horvath so far -

Probation officers, LA Chief Department.

The chief of LA County probation.

The one that was invited.

I don't know about that.

The chief of LA County Probation and Supervisor Horvath, whose district it is. And so far, Supervisor Horvath has been a big supporter of rehabilitation and SYTF. So, hopefully, we can have those discussions.

Okay.

Okay.

Senator, do you have anything right now?

Let me get my.

Okay. Go back to my questions here.

Apologize, Senator Roth, if you have--I'm just looking for my questions here.

I'll ask a couple of quick ones. Judge, I happen to agree with you on electronic reporting. That's another issue. But with respect to the juvenile proceedings, you're mandated to have a reporter, are you not, in your court?

Yes.

So we're really talking about very critical situations in family court and some of the other courts that probably play a part in what you do as well.

It is already impacting those courts. It will impact the juvenile court soon.

Oh, what happens, if you're mandated to have a reporter, then you don't have proceedings?

I don't know the answer to that question.

Are your courtrooms wired for electronics?

Mine is not currently, to my knowledge.

Okay, one other--just a comment. I know I'm going to let the Chairs take over here in a second, but since you gave me the opportunity quickly. I'm finishing winding up my 12th year here. And one of the things we do well sometimes is to set policy and adjust policy, as in this juvenile justice realignment. And the other thing, as you see evidence of today that we usually do pretty well, is shine a spotlight on things that aren't working.

And it seems like this process in Los Angeles County is sort of broken, and maybe I've missed it, but somewhere along the line, has someone in charge of local government set in motion an investigative process or an oversight process to identify problems? The problems you're lining out here, the problems in the facilities, the problems, actual or perceived, with the probation department, the way they're handling it, the staffing issues, and set out recommendations and a corrective action plan that could be or should be implemented by someone?

Senator Roth, in the next panel we'll hear from the OYCR ombuds person that that is.

Well, that's a complaint process.

But they investigate, as well.

Okay. No, I'll wait for that, because the one thing we can't usually do up here is jump as a state Legislature into local government and fix local government issues where they're broken, where the local government elected officials are not stepping up. And as I said, I know they-

-Perhaps that's a question for Kathleen?

Well, I'll wait, Madam Chair.

No, she was in the previous. I don't know if she--are you able to speak on that a little bit?

Good morning. Katie Howard again with the BSCC. Senator, I think your question had to do with who at the state level has authority to compel locals?

No. When we have a set of problems, normally somebody drops in, sorts out what the problems are. You can call it an Inspector General. You can call it a State Auditor. You can call it a county auditor. The County Board of Supervisors has the authority to appoint an independent monitor, to hire a law firm, to conduct an investigation, to develop a report, to identify what the specific problems are, and we've heard a lot of them. And what the corrective action and the recommendations are, that's then delivered. And they either adopt it in whole or part, or they--some ignore it. But it's difficult for us to sort through that up here and to give a bunch of orders to people that we don't control.

Sure, sure. I think some of these panelists here have a lot of expertise about how things are and aren't happening at the local level in Los Angeles. And it seems from my observation today that the pressure points by Mr. Budnick and others are the pressure is being applied at the points that it needs to be. Just in terms of my own responsibilities of our board at the BSCC, this is beyond the scope of what we can do. But the issue of can more young people be moved, be placed at Camp Kilpatrick? It sounds like there's progress being made locally, and certainly a hearing like this today also does exactly as you said, provides a greater spotlight.

Well, it sounds to me like the answer is, there's nothing that's been done locally in terms of directing a specific investigation of this particular set of facilities, the staffing in the facilities, to develop a plan of corrective action that's delivered to the Board of Supervisors for review.

Oh, the Board of Supervisors is very aware of all of the work that the BSCC does on compliance with the operational regulations for the facility.

I'm just trying to decide what we can do. This is very disturbing to hear this, and yet, at the state legislative level, we typically don't pass a bill to set the limit on the number of the population at Camp Kilpatrick.

Right.

That's done at the local level. And so the question is, is there a document somewhere that exists that identifies specific faults, corrective action, that we can point to and say, "Do it or don't do it?"

To my knowledge, at that level of detail, no, there's not that sort of plan.

That's what I wanted to ask.

Senator Roth, I don't know if the Legislature has the power of this type of fix, but I don't think at this point--the chief of probation or members, some members of the Board of Supervisors, like that crazy word of receivership that most people before would have pushed away for--I think at this point, I think the people in charge realize how broken this is. And I think even the people that would normally, because of their political stance, push against that would welcome receivership at this point.

Well, I can assure you what we've been listening to at all levels is very disturbing. But I'm going to let my Chairs, who know more about this than I do, to continue to ask questions.

Senator Roth, you absolutely bring up kind of like the elephant in the room, right, you know. We decided, and I mentioned some of these talking points in my opening statements regarding the transfer of jurisdiction over the counties. But if we're sending close to $1 billion down, how can we then utilize those fundings to actually meet the needs of the kids? So in CalHHS, health and human services as a whole, other programs that we're moving forward towards is individualized plans versus a lump sum.

We're talking about the foster rate reform that we're going to be seeing. CalAIM is individualized. How can we then, us, at this level, realign these fundings to say, "Hey, this is how." Because we have jurisdiction over that. "This is how the grants are going to be administered." Next year--well, if it's not delayed--we were going to create a methodology for the--see if I know this acronym--JJRBG grants. Grants that we dedicate down to the counties.

And we're going to be coming up with a methodology alongside the administration and department on how we're going to administer that funding. So utilizing this space to see what recommendations we can provide and how the funding is going to be utilized starting either in 2024 or 2025. That's where I see our jurisdiction here. And additionally, we as legislators created the OYCR, created statute of the ombuds person. And last year, Assembly Member Ting, if I'm not mistaken, added more teeth to the ombuds person to hold accountable the youth that we sent out. So I understand it's going to be hard--and I'm not here to mandate a Board of Supervisors LA do that.

I'm bringing up these notions so that when we look at legislation around alignment funds, when we look at do we need to add more teeth to the ombuds person, we have the necessary data to say this is why we need to further bring down some direction, because our intention of realignment of why we gave it down to counties, that promise that we got from counties is not being held par to what we thought. So that's the approach I have in all this, because we're going to be hearing some things that we don't have jurisdiction, yes, but I think it adds to the story of the need on the realignment dollars.

Could I ask from Ms. Kakani what your opinion is on the local oversight?

I can just speak, first of all, as it relates to capacity for Kilpatrick, based on a form that the probation department provided to the BSCC, capacity is 48. As it relates to placement, judges can order that a young person be placed at a camp, that a young person be placed at an SYTF, that a young person be released on an ankle monitor or the community detention program. But they don't get to specify where specifically that young person goes. That is entirely in probation's hands.

It's entirely in kind of how probation, the probation union, the probation kind of staff are holding things down and presumably their interaction with people in those communities and what they're trying to uphold. From the beginning, the probation union and the probation department felt very strongly about maintaining the SYTF at Barry J. And that's exactly what they're doing. There was a second question that I didn't answer.

Oversight.

About oversight as it relates to what's happening? I mean yes, absolutely. You know, we do annual inspections and we provide all of that information to the BSCC. We are trying to set up a grievance system where young folks and family can also communicate directly with the Probation Oversight Commission. But outside of subpoena power, all we can do is make a recommendation. All we can do is call for folks to do better, but we can't change the power that really, I think probation holds.

I honestly feel like that rests in your hands, because all of that is mandated by the welfare and institutions code. So we can call out the missteps and acknowledge the shortcomings of which there are very many. And I know that there's this mention of receivership. I'm not sure that receivership can fix a broken system. And that's very much what this is. And I think we need to be a little more critical about how it is that we support these young folks because receivership will just maintain the existing system, perhaps do a better job of incarcerating our young people, but I don't think that that's the answer.

And, I'm sorry. One more question about the Probation Oversight Commission. What more can be done to address, particularly the comments made by Senator Roth?

Around kind of like who is the person or who is the entity that should be handling these things? I mean all we can do is bring it to light. We do have the office of the Inspector General, right? So they provide biannual reports that are in connection to the settlement between LA County and the Department of Justice. I mean, the DOJ could probably be doing a lot more. LA County is wildly out of compliance, not just as it relates to minimum standards, but also the settlement that we entered into with the Department of Justice. Every single time the Office of the Inspector General has provided a report back, LA County has failed.

Whether it's programming, whether it's use of our cameras, whether it's use of force, whether it's just OC spray, literally every single one of those reports that we have received since the settlement was entered into has listed both Barry J. Nidorf and at the time, Central, because those were the two facilities as failing in all of the kind of areas that the Office of the Inspector General was charged in reporting on. But there's been nothing necessarily filed by the Department of Justice calling out LA County as being out of compliance with each of those kind of settlement agreements.

But there's been nothing necessarily filed by the Department of Justice calling out La County as being out of compliance with each of those kind of settlement agreements.

Well, that's outrageous on all levels.

It is. Without a doubt.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you so much. My last question is, Mr. Byrd, we've been talking about some training for rank and file and so forth. Can you talk to me about some discrepancies around some POs getting some training and other POs getting other training, or is there uniformity across all POs getting the same kind of training?

Yes. Well, when you speak of POs, I have to frame it in terms of critical staffing shortages. So there's a thing called deployment. In probation, in Los Angeles County, we have juveniles and we have adults. The juvenile officers are severely deficient in terms of staffing inventory. So the chief has to order field staff, we call them, to be deployed into the institutions. That is not their area of expertise, that is not their niche.

And so sometime when you have these deployed staff coming into the institution, some of them have never worked with juveniles, and so it presents a problem of control. What you hear today is the deficiencies in the department. Like I said, the BSCC comes out and it does its investigation, and we fail.

We fail for many reasons, but the main reason is: when it comes to institutional staff who work with kids--which I'm proud to say I've done for 32 years--we don't have the staffing inventories that we need, and therefore, control, in terms of an environment for learning, gets displaced. When you talk about programs and you say they never get to go outside. Well, Mr. Budnick, is there. I can testify he's there all the time. He can tell you.

Sometimes they can't go outside because it's prohibited when you can't have enough staff on site. And then we've tried to correct the problem. I call it the instant grits. You want to cure the problem right away. And so the only alternative you have--there's two alternatives--hire in massive numbers or deploy field staff that don't have the expertise with dealing with juveniles.

But the field staff, they feel--because they take pride in their position, every time you deploy them, which is now two days out of the week--they feel that they are leaving their niche, the community that deals with the adult level of clientele, out on their own. In other words, they can't supervise them properly. So you have some demoralization amongst staff when they come into the institutions from the outside. Even though we all are peace officers, that's just not their expertise, and sometimes that's very difficult. So we have not been able to meet the staffing crisis.

I do give the board some credit. They have removed a freeze. For years, we've had to freeze. I talked about that in terms of attrition. I'll just give you this example. They hired 251 employees in the last 24 months. 487 exited. And so when you have that type of attrition versus hiring, and then you having to go get those who are inexperienced, sometimes it's very chaotic when it comes to dealing with juveniles. It's a specialty.

These are the reason we are having these discussions, because youth are a specialty. They take a special mentality, a special training, in order to provide them the things that you want to provide them. And so that critical staffing shortage is, I would say, the number one. If you look at any BSCC report in the last three years, the first line will say staffing crisis or staffing shortage.

And then they get into all of the other things, but you can't complete necessarily the other things, because it is at a critical level. Not just we missing one or two today, it's critical. And then lastly, I'll say, because we--I don't want to say fail--but because of the deficiency of having experienced staff, the volatility in the institution has led to assault on assaults, as these young men have said, it has allowed assault on staff.

Staff have been injured in mass numbers, and so they're out. I heard someone say 11% of the workforce. I don't think it's quite that low, but those may be the numbers. Statistics will bear out. But I will say there's a high level of staff that have been injured. Some of those are new, and some of those are veterans.

And so when you take them out of the institutional setting, those who are used to working with it, quite naturally, you may have sometime what we call an uncontrollable situation. And therefore, again, we have urged the board, we finally got them to say, "Hire." And I give them credit. They have allowed the chief to get a new marketing firm, because that's critical. Probation is in the paper, like you said, all the time. We've alleged to be doing a lot of things.

So, who want to come work for you when you're being publicized as the demon, so to speak? And so there's a lot of things that hinder us from getting to that point. I do believe the management is better. I believe they're working better with the POC, working better with the community-based organizations. We've been using community-based organizations since I came into the department 32 years ago. There's no hindrance on that. As Mr. Budnick has testified that he's been there 20 years. So people have been around, we have incorporated them. But there's surely a crisis when it comes to staffing, which makes all things work.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. If no further questions for these panelists, we're going to move on to the. Oh, go ahead.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Chair Menjivar. One of the things you mentioned was, like, the funding and where the funding should go. So one of the things I've been insinuating to different credible messengers is the idea of having youth credible messengers. I mean, you have two wonderful people sitting in front of you, you know, and we're supposed to be the poster child of Los Angeles County probation, et cetera, et cetera.

And just the idea that we're so close in age and experience, and of course are going to college, we're seeing different things, being exposed to different experiences, I believe that we would provide so much and that we will be very beneficial to their success as well. They would therefore see us as big brothers, as those like, "Okay, we can actually look up to them other than somebody in differential age of like 20 years."

It's like, you've been through this process so long ago, you don't understand what SYTF is, you don't understand what this new Youth Justice Reimagined entails. But both me and Monte Mckay both understand that situation. So I feel like if there's a way that we can implement this funding for both youth and adult credible messengers to coexist with this because these older people, they can't get out there and play basketball with the young people like that. They out there breaking their back.

You don't know Senator Durazo.

Oh, I don't want no smoke.

Hey, hey, I've seen her dunk.

I don't want no smoke. But also the ideas, I feel like I also have so much to offer because I'm now traveling to go see different prisons and juvenile halls in different states and countries. Like I said, I'm about to go to London March 27, to go speak in Pope Addiewell Prison and then also hopefully go to Japan in June. But I also have a background of being a certified dog trainer and behaviorist. So we can implement different aspects of this.

You can bring in the dogs, but you can also bring in what life also entails. Like I said, different exposure. So many people only know a certain block of a radius. It's like so much more out there in the world. The world is yours, but it's yours for you to take. So when are you going to take it? So that's all I have to say. Just make the funding worth it.

Thank you, Mr. Brown. Thank you so much, both of you, for coming. And the rest of the panelists appreciate your remarks. I'd like to invite the last three panelists for panel 3.

Joining us this afternoon is going to be Alysa Hartz, our new Ombuds person from OYCR. Vanessa, how do you say, Vanessa...Fuchs? From Sonoma County Probation Office, and then Analisa Zamora, Policy Director for Young Women's Freedom Center. Alisa?

Thank you for inviting me to address this esteemed body. Good morning or good afternoon now. Thank you for inviting me to address this esteemed body. My name is Alisa Hartz, and I have been the OYCR ombudsperson since January 15 of this year. I appreciate the prior testimony, especially hearing from Mr. Brown and Mr. Mckay. The OYCR ombudsperson is an impartial entity that receives complaints relating to youth in juvenile facilities, investigates these complaints, and seeks to resolve them where possible in collaboration with facility staff.

This is the first time that the state has had an ombudsperson able to address complaints within the local facilities. We also provide education on the Youth Bill of Rights. Our youth-friendly posters are being printed by the Office of State Publishing as we speak. AB 505, passed last year, requires us to visit each juvenile facility every year. We conducted the first of our site visits last week and will continue throughout the year.

By March 1, all six of our current positions will be filled, including three staff, people with lived experience in the juvenile justice system, and one former probation officer. We are working on developing a regular report on complaint themes, resolution, and the other data that we will be reporting per statute. In brief, as of February 1, we had 36 open cases and 205 cases closed.

We are currently receiving about two to three complaints a week, and we expect this number to rise when the Youth Bill of Rights materials are posted in their complaints. Youth raise issues that range from the conditions of their daily lives to specific major incidents that harmed or traumatized them. At this time, I can share some themes that have come up through complaints or other contacts with youth. These themes derive from complaints, many of which we are still in the process of investigating.

So, at this time, they are anecdotal. First, food is a central concern. Food is a love language. As you said, Senator, at the beginning of the hearing. Today, we're talking about love and how to care for our youth, and especially for growing teenagers. Food is critical. Youth frequently complain about the quantity and quality of food, the variety, the temperature, and access to snacks. A second theme is lack of programming or educational options.

This is of particular concern to older youth who are high school graduates with long commitments. A third theme is the overuse of pepper spray. While it is sometimes clear to youth why pepper spray is being used, for example, to break up a fight, many youth have described being subject to pepper spray when they are already complying with staff directives. Youth also often describe delayed decontamination. AB 505 has substantially facilitated our access to records and is helping us investigate complaints more effectively and efficiently.

Our ability to resolve complaints depends on effective collaboration with probation departments. We have already had successes in collaborative complaint resolutions. A few examples are adding a second sandwich to lunch in response to a complaint about food, introducing a college prep program in response to a complaint about educational opportunities, committing to formally modify a policy on youth access to legal documents in their cells supporting a young person in getting out of facility employment during their SYTF commitment.

These resolutions have been achieved through collaboration with receptive and dedicated probation departments that are open to our feedback and often with support from the technical assistance arm of OYCR. A core challenge is that often, a true complaint resolution would require resources that are not readily available, such as more probation staffing, which we have been talking about as a challenge around the state, and more community-based resources.

Based on my prior experience and what I am seeing so far in the complaints, a few preliminary recommendations are top of mind. First, we will be making recommendations to local jurisdictions to help youth with long commitments understand their path back to the community through less restrictive programs and time reductions. The path should be demonstrated and transparent to give young people hope and direction for their futures. Second, California should work toward decreasing the use of pepper spray in youth facilities.

This cannot happen overnight but could be a near-term goal. We will make recommendations to local jurisdictions to reduce the overuse of pepper spray when such instances are substantiated and to promote positive interactions with youth that will reduce the perceived need for pepper spray. Third, we are exploring ways to track youth committed to juvenile facilities who commit a new offense and end up in an adult facility and to identify the pathways that lead to these new adult offenses.

If such trends exist, they will undermine California's commitment to treating youth as youth and caring for them within youth facilities and will create the functional equivalent of transfers to adult court that the legislature has worked so hard and successfully to dramatically reduce. Thank you.

A lot of great information. I'm trying to track everything down. Okay, we're going to now move on to Vanessa.

Good afternoon. My name is Vanessa Fuchs, and I'm the chief probation officer in Sonoma County. I appreciate the opportunity to address the subcommittees regarding juvenile justice realignment. I'll begin by highlighting that prior to juvenile realignment, Sonoma County Probation already had robust programming for youth in our detention. However, with juvenile realignment, we were given the opportunity to expand our programming from approximately 20 programs to 28, 17 of those are delivered by nonprobation staff.

Our programs range from skills-based training to self-help to creative expression and building prosocial interests to career technical training and higher education. In addition to the structured programs, we also added child and family team meetings for all SYTF youth. These meetings provide for regular check ins for youth and families to offer their voice and choice in the planning process. Worth highlighting is our work with Santa Rosa Junior College and their Second Chances Rising Scholars program, one of our newer programs.

So far, we have graduated three youth with AA degrees and one with an AS. Students select their coursework but traditionally start with General education; we have one dedicated staff to help them with signing up for our college classes. Due to the quick implementation time needed as a result of SBA 23 programming that we are still building as more career technical training and further developing our less restrictive programming opportunities.

On the plus side, we recently were awarded a grant of $1.4 million from OYCR to help us successfully transition youth back to the community with individualized rehabilitative plans. Challenges that we are currently struggling with are keeping the program curriculum fresh, as some youths have already completed our programs earlier in their commitments. Also, as you've already heard, staffing the facility is a problem.

We went from an all-time low of 17 during COVID to the high 60s in a short period of time after years of cutting or not filling positions. That's a population of 17, not staffing. Sonoma County Probation is presenting here today because we were one of the first counties to commit to being a regional hub to serve youth in need from Bay Area and Northern California counties.

Our juvenile justice realignment subcommittee agreed to this on the premise that by helping others, our own youth would benefit as there would be more opportunities to provide group programming with fidelity. Initially, our juvenile hall was set to house no more than 20 SYTF youth, but a year into realignment with the pending closure of DJJ, reraised it to 30 in 2021, we applied for and were awarded a $1 million grant from the BSCC to help us stand up our regional hub.

An unanticipated challenge is that since April of 2023, we had to stop accepting out-of-county youth due to a spike in our own juvenile delinquency population. That moratorium on accepting out-of-county youth remains in effect. At our height, we had 11 out-of-county youth, and today we have eight. We currently have contracts with 10 counties, and five different counties currently have youth in our facility. The overall population in our juvenile hall today, including SYTF youth, is 66, with nine females.

The SYTF population is 21 with four being females. At our height, we had 29 SYTF Youth. I'll offer here since training keeps being brought up, that the minimum training hours is 24 hours, and our training plan for this current year is 72 hours for our line staff and 96 for our supervisors.

Regarding any recommendations, I'd like to express that the subcommittees - to the subcommittees that more time is still needed for counties to fully stand up and staff up their secure youth treatment facilities and less restrictive programs. Also, more funding is needed to truly re-envision how youth are housed for long-term commitments. The amount of money just simply is not enough for construction projects.

For example, though our facility is considered more modern than many, it was designed in the early 2000s with one type of population in mind. As a result of juvenile realignment, that population has changed tremendously, and the facility design no longer meets the needs of the older population. Also, there needs to continue to be flexibility in how the money is utilized. Putting any time limits or other restrictions on funding can be challenging for counties that are understaffed and under-resourced and still recovering from various disasters.

Like many other counties, Sonoma County has had its fair share of disasters in the past few years. Probation is only one department that has many needs to be met by our county's Department of Public Infrastructure. They simply do not have the bandwidth to start our projects on the timeline we would like them to begin. Our county's resources are pulled in a lot of directions as we recover from the many fires, floods, and COVID while coping with current weather-related issues.

Additionally, funding to pay staff more is also needed. It is not lost on our staff that DJJ staff were paid more to work with this population than they are. We currently are struggling to hire and retain juvenile correctional counselors in a market with low unemployment. We are also competing against other law enforcement agencies that are hiring with higher salaries and higher hiring incentives. Again, I want to thank you for this opportunity. That concludes my presentation, and I'll welcome any questions when the time comes.

Thank you so much. Our final panelist here, Annalisa.

Good Afternoon. My name is Analisa Zamora. Thank you, subcommittee, for holding the space to have a collective conversation about the needs of our young people. Is it loud enough? Okay, thank you. I'm the Policy Director of Young Women's Freedom Center, a statewide organization working in communities and facilities in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. In an effort to incarcerate and decriminalize young women and gender-expansive folks -

- we provide support, mentorship, and employment to those who have grown up in poverty, experienced the juvenile legal and foster care systems, have survived the underground street economy, and have experienced significant violence in their lives. Prior to this role, I spent the last several years supporting incarcerated youth in their reentry to the community in Santa Clara County.

Over time, I realized there was a pattern that I wasn't unfamiliar with, not only because of my own experience growing up in poverty, but the experiences I was supporting people through over and over again.

Between housing instability, homelessness, involvement in the child welfare system, parental incarceration, school-to-prison pipeline or school push-out in poverty, violence, and trauma, it became clear this is a systemic issue that folks here, as leaders in California, have the ability and responsibility to address in a way that puts an end to the cycles of trauma and abuse our young people are experiencing. In California, girls and gender-expansive youth specifically experience high rates of child welfare involvement and sexual abuse while in the legal system.

Many of these youth remain stuck in the cycles of incarceration due to technical violations and status offenses related to their lack of stability and inability to cope. Keeping them in the cycle has a direct correlation to unhealthy relationships involving sexual and physical abuse due to learned power dynamics in the system where they express having very little access to bodily autonomy. The reality is none of this will end until we reimagine what accountability looks like and how youth are supported in leading self-determined lives.

Incarceration is not a safety net and should never be considered the solution. By focusing on incarceration in facilities and the idea of placements determined by the government system, we are setting youth up to only know how to thrive in an institution. Commitment to a realignment of the youth system means creating alternatives that cultivate the leadership and brilliance that already exists in young people. When youth are placed in safe environments where relationships are healthy, they thrive.

In recent evaluations of our programming, young people reported that prior to having a safe space with compassionate and relatable adults, they didn't feel safe and, therefore, didn't realize they were living in constant survival, unable to address their healing. A safe space means that youth are provided community-based care where they are seen as experts in their own lives, and they are listened to and embraced in all the strengths that they carry as individuals.

To care for young people, it's critical they're met with curiosity to understand the complete context of their lives in the historical, economic, social, and spiritual aspects to support them in their journey to wholeness. Commitment to a carefirst model means innovative investment in communities and families.

We must put an end to the criminalization of poverty and begin investment in permanent, safe, and affordable housing for whole families that does not replicate the system so that true family unification can be possible without investment in whole families; it's impossible for families to build and create sustainability. While resources like beloved community housing are readily available to support in this process, the barrier to this is that current funding opportunities only seek to resource those replicating a model we know does not work.

Counties like Santa Clara have found ways to provide direct funding in the form of guaranteed income to survivors and those at risk of exploitation, violation, I mean, and violence.

I apologize.

They've allocated funding to young parents and to those reentering the community. We can do it across the state, too. We need to invest in cultural, holistic, and professional methods of healing to address the trauma youth are exposed to when involved in the systems and when they leave them. And, of course, we need to ensure the agency trusted to support realignment is well-resourced.

A well-funded OYCR would fill many of the overwhelming needs for oversight, technical assistance, and grant administration, highlighted by my fellow panelists here today. Legislators should prioritize funding OYCR, an agency that was viewed in 2020 as a linchpin to successful realignment. OYCR needs more staff. Currently, the Ombuds office only has six staff members to receive, investigate, and resolve concerns from incarcerated youth, family, and staff across California's 58 counties.

For perspective, in 2022, nearly 9000 youth were securely detained in around 90 facilities staffed by thousands of employees. Six staff to ensure all these people are safe and supported. Also, in less than one year, by law, OICR will be in charge of administering all juvenile justice grants, federal and state. The current budget change proposal for OICR is insufficient because it only accounts for the transfer of federal grants from the BSCC to OYCR and excludes state funds.

OYCR is fundamental in ensuring that hundreds of millions of dollars a state invests annually is producing positive outcomes. A May 2020 California State audit report concluded that the BSCC's minimal oversight of the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act, JJCPA, failed to hold counties accountable for poor grant spending and noncompliance with mandated administration. With appropriate funding, OICR can successfully address these issues and ensure California's successful realignment in budgeting for staff.

It's important that salaries are set high enough to attract the most qualified candidates for key positions at OYCR. It is absurd that last year, the posted salary range of OYCR's Ombuds person was lower than the range for BSCC field representatives. Legislators must also provide enough operating expenses to equip staff to properly perform their jobs. This includes providing enough travel funds for Ombuds staff and technical assistance providers.

Finally, OYCR also needs funds to invest in developing and maintaining new systems and infrastructure needed for proper data collection, reporting, and evaluations. Realigning to a youth-first care-first model is necessary, and it's possible it will take time and our collective effort. The center is here to door apart, and we ask that you, as leaders, also do yours by allocating funds innovatively.

Thank you so much for your remarks. I'm going to start my first question with Vanessa. Correct me. Did I hear that 17 of your programs are led by non PO1 personnel?

That's correct.

Could you share with me? Were there any hesitancy? How do the probation officer feel included? Is it collaboration, or is it just being completely led by other entities?

It depends. For the most part, our juvenile correctional staff will do certain programmings while outside entities will do other programming. But our staff are clearly present there. Our staff welcome that. It's a relief for them to have outside entities being brought in. And we also realized long ago that we can't do this work alone. And if we want a successful transition, we need to be making those connections to community-based organizations while they're in custody and help them transition into the community.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Our new ombudsperson. Welcome. I mean, I know you come from OYCR. That's kind of my first question. Full transparency. It was a little difficult for me in the beginning to find a way how you were going to be autonomous from OYCR, as you were the right-hand woman of Director Lucero. Can you talk to me about your ability to step aside from your previous role and be this autonomous individual that's going to hold a lot of entities accountable, including OYCR?

Thank you for the question. I have been with OYCR since I was the first staff person hired with OYCR, so I'm very well acquainted with the office and have participated in the shaping of the office, including being counsel to the ombudsperson division in my previous role. One of the reasons that I was very excited about the idea of moving over to be the ombudsperson is that it really combines my prior experience as a legal advocate.

I was a civil rights attorney for six years in Los Angeles with public counsel, and I fought to hold systems accountable, fought for the rights of youth, and really one of the reasons that I wanted to do this work was precisely to be able to serve the youth and to really hear their concerns, to engage with them individually, to kind of get back to that kind of fact finding investigation resolution that I was able to do in my prior career when I did litigation.

So I have no problem. I have deep respect for the leadership of OYCR, and I have no problem in taking a different position if I need to. I have no problem in vociferously advocating for something I believe in with both the leadership of OYCR, the leadership of agency, up to the governor's office.

Thank you. Right. When you came in January 15, I think the fight club at Los Padrinos had just happened. Have you had the opportunity to do some private conversations with the youth or other probation officers yet at LP?

Not since I started, no.

Okay. And then you shared with us some common themes around complaints and so forth, and you started going into some of the recommendations. I just want to make sure some of the overarching recommendations are decreasing the overuse of pepper spray. And the second part, you're looking to create a path, a plan. Can you explain a little bit more and see if I captured that correctly?

So my first recommendation had to do with -

Sandwiches. The lunch or something like that.

That was a theme. The food issue is a theme. And in terms of recommendations, I have not developed any legislative recommendations around food. The first kind of recommendations that I was suggesting were how important it is for young people to know how they're going to get out of the juvenile facility.

Because what I'm seeing in conversations with youth is that they sometimes have this sense of despair that they don't know how they are going to get out from where they are to some better place. And there's a lot of resources that we have right now that are new with SB 823 that could be really transformative for them. Less restrictive programs, reduction in sentences, things that they're not aware of them, and they're not being told how they can get them. We heard this in the prior panel.

They don't know what the process is for them to get a time reduction or to get into a less restrictive program. What are the criteria? And that's going to be different in every facility. But we have some complaints related to that kind of what I would call despair and lack of. They want to get out in whatever way that they can. And I think that this is a recommendation for promoting better culture while they're incarcerated that I think could be impactful for young people in many facilities.

My final question here is sticking to this topic: how do we anticipate getting some recommendations from you regarding these common themes? We saw the numbers back in August. I saw the numbers back in August from a briefing from OYCR regarding the cases that were filed and the ones that are still open and so forth. And what we don't want to see, and I shared this before, is that we'll close the cases two months later. We have the same amount of cases.

How are we looking to decrease the common themes, create sustainable changes? And when should we anticipate or should I anticipate some of those recommendations on the report that we talked about earlier today that will be coming up next year or the annual report that you'll be sharing with us, perhaps at the end of this year?

Yes. So you will be getting a report from us this year sooner rather than later, I hope. The ombudsperson division is reaching some really important milestones. As I said on March 1, we will have all of our six positions staffed. In addition, we are currently in the process of getting our case management system up and running. That system is going to allow us to generate reports like that. We're going to have the issue areas tracked.

We're going to have figure out how we're capturing how the complaints are resolved, because there's multiple ways that complaints can be resolved. Not every complaint is going to be substantiated. Not every complaint is going to be resolved through action of the ombudsperson, but many will. And so the system is going to allow us to capture in a much more detailed level, not just the data specified by the statute, but also how the complaints are being resolved and what the themes are.

And I think that will be the core of the report, but certainly the themes that will be emerging from the complaints. I view that as really central to the reports that we will be submitting to you on at least an annual basis. But there's a lot more that we can say that we will be able to say about what we are seeing across different counties, and it will let us identify where there are statewide issues and where there are kind of pockets of localized issues.

Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to get a better idea of how you do your work in terms of access. The youth having access to you: do they directly call you? Where is the confidentiality they might need in order to reach out to you? Do you personally directly talk to them about the complaints and what to do about them and take something like, let's say, individual plans? There are things that must be required.

So if you get a complaint, you're trying to fix something that's already required, like is an individual plan already required? And so somebody complains, youth brings that to your attention, that they don't have a youth plan. Do you do something about it to fix that, or it's just something that you sort of save until if it's a systemic problem, then you try to fix it at that level.

So I'm trying to get a sense of the practical side, the daily side of addressing issues that the youth have.

Those are really good questions. So first, in terms of youth access to us, we have a hotline that is staffed between 08:00 a.m. and 05:00 p.m. Every day. And then there's voicemail for after hours and so if a youth or anybody who's making a complaint related to the treatment of youth in juvenile facilities, it could be a lawyer, it could be a family member, it could be staff, it could be a mental health provider. Anybody can make a complaint.

They can call that hotline and they speak with one of our staff during business hours, or we find a way to get back to them if we get a voicemail after hours. So that's one way that we're getting complaints. That's the main way that we are getting complaints from youth. Your question about confidentiality is really important, and that's something that we're working with probation departments in terms of ensuring that youth have a confidential place to make those calls.

And the Youth Bill of Rights materials, the posters indicate all of the youth rights and also indicate that they have the right to make these confidential calls to the ombuds person. Sometimes the placement of the phones is an issue. The phone will just be in the day room, and everybody can hear them making the call. And that's something that we're confronting, but that's where the phone is, and we're working on developing strategies around that and making sure that youth are comfortable making those calls to us.

I know that in some facilities, they have the ability to not record the calls to the ombudsperson, which is something that we'll be trying to see if that's logistically feasible in the near term across the state. With respect to your second question, related to how do we deal with an individual issue versus a systemic issue, how do we decide how to deal with a certain complaint so it really does...

And also how to help resolve it?

How to help resolve it? Yes. So, just to kind of set the baseline, we have no authority to direct probation to do anything. We can make recommendations, and we can work with them collaboratively to resolve something. So there may be an issue that we believe after the investigation violates Title 15, and we'll let BSCC know, and we'll continue to work with probation to try to resolve it. But ultimately, we can just make recommendations.

But what we've seen is that a lot of probation departments have been willing to work with us to resolve complaints after we've investigated them. So sometimes there will be, like the example that you raised around the individual plan. I think that we have jurisdiction over harmful conditions within the facility, and so the more common complaint in that area would be my IRP says that I'm supposed to get vocational training, but I'm not getting anything.

And so what we'll do is, usually, we'll speak with the youth first, then we'll set a meeting with probation, try to figure out what's going on with the like, get a copy of the IRP, find out. Why haven't you provided this program? What is your plan? Is it correct that you haven't provided this program? What is your plan to provide the program? Is there an conversation? We get our evidence.

We have the conversations, and then we try to work to find a resolution that is the desired outcome of the complainant. So if the youth wants vocational training, then that's what we would really be focused on addressing. Sometimes, there are complaints that are truly systemic issues that we do kind of put in a bucket for a systemic recommendation or potentially a special report, and I am looking at considering a number of special reports and investigations.

Once we're fully staffed and have our systems in place, that will allow us to really dig into issues that we are seeing around the state.

Sorry, just one more with Analisa. Could you talk about your experience with girls in the juvenile system and any Insight as to the experience of what girls are going through?

Yes. So, I worked with young women through COVID, and I started working. We got access to young folks inside a few months prior to COVID. And so when I first entered into facilities, I would see at any point between 12 and 15 young women who would come to program and work with me and do workshops.

And when I met with them one-on-one to talk about their reentry and their planning for their next hearing, most of them were telling me, "I don't have anywhere to go. I don't have a good relationship with my mom. My mom doesn't even have a stable place to take me into." And there were no solutions.

We would go to court, and judges were great at connecting the entire team and holding probation accountable to the things that they need to be, the resources they need to be seeking for this young person. But at the end of the day, there's such a lack of resources that even then, there was still nowhere to go.

And so these young people are just sitting here until their next court date, hoping that something's going to happen, hoping that probation is going to find someone that a family member they don't even know suitable right to be sent home to. And that story was never unique.

That was always a situation, that young women were being told, you're being placed here in juvenile hall, and you're being kept here for your own safety because you have addiction issues or because you're involved in the underground street economy. And time and time again, young people were telling me, "That's not what I need. This is what's hurting me. I'm going home, and I have nothing to cope with. And that's why I'm using because I'm self-medicating." I think young people are just -

- they're being incarcerated for situations that are truly out of their control, and they need support and not just to be met with more. As another panelist has said, incarceration, where the door shuts behind you, and it's not conducive to our young people's health. It's very detrimental. And we can't keep placing them in conditions that's causing their issues in the first place.

And so when I think about solutions, I spoke about beloved housing, community housing, but models like that, where if a young person is telling you that they have someone, a family member, maybe they're working on the relationship with mom, but mom doesn't have a place to go. We should be investing in mom as well, not just the young person, because at the end of the day, the mom will never be found suitable if she doesn't have anywhere, but she wants to take her child back in.

Or if we're only relying on family to find or probation to find someone suitable, per all the requirements that come with that, and we're not listening to young person who's saying, "No, I do feel safe with that family member or with that friend or with that cousin or with my friend's parents." If they're telling you they feel safe and that's an environment that they feel they'll be able to thrive in, then we should be listening to our young people.

I also wanted to speak about innovative funding, and so part of my work with young people during COVID. We all know the issues that came up as far as housing and so many. But some of the funding barriers that we had were that there were times that I needed to get a young person somewhere to stay tonight, or I needed to pay someone's phone bill because they're coming out of incarceration. And the schools haven't figured out laptops, the schools haven't figured out Internet at that point.

Right. But I was being told we can't spend on that because there's so many restrictions on funding, and unless you're using it on an after-school program or to buy them a snack, sorry, but I can't approve this.

And the issue is that, yeah, that's great, but at the end of the day, the young person is still going home to no home or nothing to eat until the next time they can come into the center, where we can support them with their immediate need right then and there. So those are just some of the solutions that I have, and I'd love to continue the conversation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's just a quick question. I think of the buds person. I was bothered by the information about the apparent inappropriate use of pepper spray on those who were detained or in custody. How effective was your investigative effort in terms of resolving the complaints?

The pepper spray investigations are still ongoing.

Has it been difficult for you to secure the appropriate reports and files necessary to resolve inappropriate use of pepper spray complaints?

So, we've only recently gotten explicit access to records without a court order. So for instance, video records are really important for pepper spray investigations. I mean, that's really the only way that you can see, at least start to see whether in what way the pepper spray was used and how it started. And so, as of January 1, we're having much better success at getting video. And so I think that's going to be key.

So, combining the video with the incident reports should let us understand what does the department believe was the reason for using the pepper spray. What does the video show? What did the youth say? And really getting a better idea of how it's being experienced and presented from all those sides?

Well, it's certainly, I think, important for us to make sure that you have the information and important to the chairs for you to have the information necessary for you to do your job. Do you know, is there a standard protocol with respect to probation officers with respect to the use of pepper spray in a custodial setting?

It's covered in Title 15, so the BSCC's regulations do cover the steps that have to be taken prior to pepper spray being used. It's fairly high level in terms of trying to resolve the situation before using pepper spray. And I think that can be interpreted and, in practice, is occurring in different ways to be in compliance with Title 15. So there is like a framework within Title 15 around pepper spray?

Well, I think we'd probably like to see, certainly, a standardized training approach. Obviously, you don't want to be too restrictive because it is a lethal form, a less lethal form of dealing with situations. But you mentioned you're trying to make sure people use less pepper spray. I think we probably need to be more specific than that in terms of giving guidance. So be interested to see what you come up with there. Thank you. Madam Chairs.

Last questions here, ombudsperson. You mentioned that you started your visits last week and you'll continue this year. Are you going to be taking advantage of your ability to do unannounced visits, or are you planning on announcing?

So, the visits that we started last week are the mandatory annual site visits for those visits. We decided to announce all of the annual visits because we want to be able to engage with the appropriate leadership of the facilities with respect to our visits that are connected to investigations. I think our standard practice will not be to announce those visits. And so we have already gone to facilities without announcing in advance that we were going to be arriving.

And so I think most of our investigative visits will not be announced.

Thank you. And the last question is, for instances where a great incident happened, like the fight club or the overdose, will we be making it a practice to go and visit that juvenile hall to conduct our own investigation on top of what's happening with that probation department?

That's an interesting question. I think that specifically in LA, as was discussed in the last panel, there are many different layers of oversight that have very direct access to the information about what's happening in the facilities. So there's the consent decree with the Attorney General's Office. There's the office of the Inspector General. There's the internal probation investigations. So there is all of that going on and one of the principles of ombudsperson investigations is to try to resolve issues at the lowest level possible.

So when there are processes that we think are effective happening, we won't necessarily go in. That said, I do think that major incidents like that, we haven't made a decision on whether we will have a policy to automatically like to basically have that trigger an OYCR ombudsperson investigation. But that's something that we will certainly consider.

Thank you. Colleagues, I think those were only comments. Thank you so much for your presentation and remarks today. That concludes all our think. You know, like Senator Roth, he summarized it. A lot of disturbing things that we gotcha. A lot of disturbing things that we heard today. And our goal here is just to find where we fit in to help be part of the solution there.

So now we want to move over to public comment, and I want to thank my colleagues, my co-chair here, for joining us and putting this panel together. So if anyone has any public comment, you can come forward. If you could restrict your comments to two minutes. All right. Right. Everything has been said. Oh, we got a couple.

The conditions, as you have heard today, are unbearable for all and deadly for some. This plan and its subsequent commitment, its fiscal investment in county-run youth carceral facilities, has only served to reinforce California's antiquated reliance on punishment and criminalization. Young people, like everyone else, need to be seen. They need to be held tight in the grip of a community that loves, inspires, and fiercely protects them. They need their basic needs met.

They need access and opportunity to blossom their potential, all things that are deeply incompatible with any probation Department in California. There are opportunities to shift restorative and rehabilitative care - diversionary care as mandated by state law. The Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act passed over 20 years ago, was intended to provide county agencies and CBOs with the funding needed to enact these proactive interventions. However, this grant instead gets spent largely on probation salaries and benefits. You have the power to clarify how this grant can be spent.

You can support legislative efforts to add community representation on the county bodies that oversee this grant. This isn't a catch-all fix in any way, but a beginning to shift power to building resources and collective community care.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon. My name is Aditi Sherikar. I'm from Children's Defense Fund California and also from the Los Angeles Youth Uprising Coalition. You've heard a lot today about Los Angeles County, and I want to highlight again that LA probation was asked to be here today and refused. And this is in line with their track record. LA probation is a department that has repeatedly refused any kind of call for accountability, introspection, transparency.

We've heard here today about the conditions in these facilities, and it is clear that this is a department that is beyond reform. There is no training; there is no funding. There is no training center or upgrades that can change a culture that is so deep rooted right now in Los Angeles County. If this is how they treat you, imagine how they treat the young people who they wield complete control over, who they control and surveil on a daily basis.

This is a department that has not hundreds but over 3000 allegations of childhood sexual assault levied against them, and Local 685, the union that does represent their rank and file, has gone on national television and flatly denied that there is any wrongdoing within the probation department.

This is also a union that has asked you for $1.0 billion over four years in this year alone for upgraded facilities where they can continue to control and surveil and abuse these young people and embed themselves as the only answer to what happens after harm is committed. But you have the power to deny that request. You have the power to instead use that funding for alternatives that are not just shiny new paint on facilities that we know cause so much abuse and damage.

You have the ability to invest that elsewhere. As my colleague Milinda stated earlier, you can diversify the portfolio here. Instead of granting this request for $1.0 billion for shiny new child prisons, you can use that money to fund alternatives. You can use that money to ensure that there is an option other than Barry J. Nidorf or Central Juvenile Hall, or even Kilpatrick because, at the end of the day, as was stated earlier, you can't get well in a cell.

And if you continue to fund simple upgrades to these facilities, you are missing out on all the opportunity to help young people in the community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Erin Palacios, and I'm an attorney with the Youth Law Center. I've appreciated listening to the questions today, and I wanted to highlight what I think is the most important question, which was, I think, where does the buck stop? And I just want to point out there's billions of bucks, and many of them stop with you.

And in some of those ways, I heard Senator Menjivar mention the upcoming work to redo the allocation for the JJRBG funding, which is about a quarter of $1.0 billion annually, to county probation departments in just one fund. We need more than an allocation formula. We actually need requirements tied to that money because if we don't have requirements for that money, what we have is continuous funding following continuous failure. So we absolutely need that corrected. And that's in your power to correct.

We need a strong, independent state oversight body. There is no independent state oversight body right now. There is very limited oversight. These facilities, which house some of the most vulnerable children in some of the most dangerous facilities that this state has, have a requirement to be inspected once every two years, and there is no requirement that that be unannounced. That means you actually have no idea on a day-to-day basis what happens in these facilities. And what is happening in LA is not unique.

It is simply the biggest, most obvious failure that cannot currently be ignored when I say that we need oversight right now.

I would also encourage you to look back at the 2019 report from the LAO on the board of State and Community Corrections, which questions why it is the majority made up of law enforcement, why it has no clear mission, why it is that the authority that you all have to drive policy on minimum standards says only that juvenile halls should have minimum standards for the maintenance and operation of the facilities.

Absent in there is the safety, care, well-being, education, health treatment of young people, and that needs to be added. You are, I think, getting the minimum standards that you are requiring and that needs to be addressed.

And the other thing I would say really needs to be addressed is how the inspections are supposed to take place when they take place in these facilities and whether or not these facilities should be licensed like other children's facilities operated by counties rather than just overseen on every other year basis. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any further comments? I don't know what else. I think I've said it all in this hearing, honestly, just nothing else to say. I do appreciate so many people coming up here from various backgrounds, expertise from across the state. I love hearing examples of what it looks like when the 5% of probation officers; that's the number I think I was given care from those two gentlemen who share their stories.

I loved hearing the stories from Sonoma County probation officer and what they're doing, and how it is possible to have a probation department do the great work in collaboration with another entity. Because what she said was key is that they know that they need the support, and I think that's where I'm leading with that. There needs to be another entity that comes and supports this. I think we need to look at this the way we look at law enforcement overall. Right?

So many of our progressive members were talking about how we need social workers with every law enforcement officer out on the street. I think that's how we should look at probation officers. We need someone who is trained in this, attached with someone who is there for the safety and security of everyone else.

Looking forward to partnering further with my co-chair here on this type of work, seeing what we can do as both LA Members, our backyards and protecting the youth in LA, and then continue to learn from other facilities across California that are doing some good work and finding a way to get more kids to Pine Grove as well. I know there's issues on MediCal coverage at Pine Grove.

There's issue around pay rate at, you know, finding a way to incentivize more youth to go there and become firefighters after that. With that, I just look forward to continue having these conversations, but not for a long time. I look forward to ending these conversations more than that because I think I said this last year. I was like, I don't want to come back next year and have the same conversations. Right. I think it's about seeing each time progress.

And I don't know if I'm seeing progress since last year, to be honest. But I do know that we have dedicated members here to address a lot of these issues.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I only want to add. I agree with you. I just want to add there's so many the testimonies that were given here by everyone who's in some way touched or touching our juvenile justice system. I appreciate that you're trying and you're working hard to try to figure out what are systemic changes that we need because we do need systemic changes. There's no doubt about it. I appreciate everyone who testified, told their personal stories, told us about what your recommendations are.

I think staffing levels at every part of the department needs to be acknowledged for trying. And I want to do a special shout-out also for the public defenders and juvenile division for the work that they do alongside all of those in the private sector who give of their time to raise the voices of our youth.

So somewhere, all of these voices that came together today need to do it on a much more constant basis so that we don't forget or one voice or demonize another voice, but rather that we include everybody's voices in this final solution. So, thank you all. I appreciate you all very much. I guess there was a particular public defender, Ms. Brownstein, whose name was brought up several times. Are you here? Oh, well, thank you.

Your name was brought up several times, and I just want to acknowledge the work that you do.

With that. This hearing is adjourned.