Alameda County’s Chief Probation Officer David Muhammad demonstrates innovative and determined leadership through his new approach to serving juvenile justice involved youth.  He employs a youth development framework that views youthful offenders not simply as a “bundle of needs and problems”, but rather as individuals with real resiliency and strengths that can be incorporated into their plan for rehabilitation and reentry.  In his recent keynote address at the California Wellness Foundation’s 2011 Conference on Violence Prevention, Chief Muhammad discussed nine principles for reform that his department has begun implementing.  Their overarching goals are reducing recidivism rates, increasing public safety, and improving the long-term outcomes for youth under county supervision.  

Chief Muhammad made a compelling case that developing the right staff culture, with the right commitment to young people, is as important as introducing the right practices based on data and research.  He clearly has an understanding of youthful offenders as whole people and values the positive role that families and communities play in rehabilitation.  The following are highlights from his nine principles:

Trauma-Informed Interventions
Chief Muhammad articulates that “hurt people, hurt people” and proposes that many of the delinquent behaviors committed by young people come from their deep experiences of trauma.  He asks, “If we ignore the trauma and just try to correct the delinquent behavior, will we ever see true rehabilitation?”  He is redirecting his department to develop interventions that are “trauma-informed” by training his staff in how to identify trauma and connect youth to the appropriate services.

Risk-Assessments Combined with Need-Assessments
Alameda County has begun conducting “needs assessments” in addition to “risk assessments” so that lower-risk youth do not consume excess staff resources and encounter excessive contact with the criminal justice system that can do more harm than good.  High-risk youth in Alameda County develop collaborative “individual achievement plans” with their probation.  Individualized approaches and interventions have shown improved results in safety and rehabilitation.

Community-Based Alternatives
Alameda County recently opened their first evening reporting center that provides youth with connections to community-based services.  This center allows youth to be at home and to report in everyday after school, maintaining positive contacts with family.  It serves as a geographical hub for probation officers to connect youth to adequate resources.  The state has recognized this innovation and has awarded Alameda County a grant to open two more evening reporting centers in the coming year.

Clear Policies for Sanctions
Chief Muhammad argues for “graduated sanctions” where there are clear outlines for staff to provide consequences for negative behavior.  A fellow Chief Probation Officer told him that too many juveniles are violated for “poo-poo”, which stands for pissed off probation officers.  Staff and youth under supervision need clear policies of when to violate.  The department is working with the Burns Institute in developing these policies for Alameda County.

California needs more probation chiefs who willing to innovate, to embrace the importance of data-driven approaches and best practices, and to lead their counties in building juvenile justice systems for the 21st century.

Over the course of 1971 to 1972 a remarkable event occurred that permanently altered conventional assumptions about justice administration. Jerome G Miller, then commissioner of youth corrections in Massachusetts, systemically carried out the most sweeping reforms in correctional history. He closed the state's five juvenile reform schools and transferred over 1,500 youths to an assortment of community-based programs. These actions, which were at first greeted with skepticism and derision by much of the correctional establishment, proved to be revolutionary in changing popular assumptions about the treatment of youth in trouble. Research revealed that when not subject to abusive prison-like conditions, young offenders were less likely to display violent and criminally prone behaviors later on. Most importantly, well-designed and properly implemented rehabilitation programs substantially reduce recidivism among even the most difficult offenders.

While the trend toward punitive public policies in recent years has undermined these important lessons, the legacy of Dr. Miller's reforms lives on. A growing number of jurisdictions throughout the United States are now recognizing the importance of substituting retributive practices with a more balanced array of sanctions and interventions.

Click here for Dr. Miller’s blog.

CJCJ’s Communications Specialist, Selena Teji, discusses how Dr. Miller’s 1972 Massachusetts reforms apply to California’s modern day juvenile justice system in her op-ed, The De-incarceration of California’s juvenile justice system. 

Congratulations to Executive Director Daniel Macallair, who has been awarded the California Wellness Foundation Sabbatical Program Award for 2011!  This leadership support program is now in its ninth year and aims to provide an opportunity for rejuvenation and promote the health of valuable leaders in the nonprofit health and human services sector.

"I look forward to spending three months finishing my book on the Calfornia juvenile justice system."

~ CJCJ Executive Director Daniel Macallair

Mr. Macallair is speaking today at the TCWF Conference on Violence Prevention, Friday, November 18, 2011 at 11 am, alongside David Muhammad, Alameda County Chief Probation Officer, and Marjorie Rist, Yolo County Chief Probation Officer, on a panel entitled, California Corrections Realignment: Impacts & Opportunities.  The panel will be moderated by James Bell, Founder and Executive Director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute.

After 5 years, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) hosted their most successful national conference with over 3,000 registrants from across the country this year.  From October 12th through October 14th, OJJDP presented over 65 workshops, utilizing 11 distinct tracks.  The tracks provided particular perspectives, such as those specifically tailored for funders, law enforcement, and tribal communities, but also included more over-arching juvenile justice topics to include marginalized girls, gangs, defending childhood, and protecting and advocating for children.

The most powerful and consistent theme clearly identifiable throughout the week’s conference was the genuine inclusion of youth presenters.  To have youth play such a critical role in a national juvenile justice conference truly showed that amongst over 3,000 adults sitting around a conference room, the youth were not forgotten.  I imagine every participant would agree that the most impactful aspects of the three-day conference were the joint plenary sessions, keynote speakers, and special events.

The conference unfolded with the presentation of colors by the Junior ROTC Honor Guard from Crossland High School (MD) followed by the Pledge of Allegiance delivered by young Nyah Anderson from Benjamin Orr Elementary School (Washington, DC).  Welcoming participants back on the morning of Day 2, the Benjamin Orr Elementary School Chorus held the audience’s full attention during their up-lifting musical productions.  Lastly, the South Shore Drill Team and Performing Arts Ensemble (Illinois) invigorated the crowd with the numerous breath-taking drill presentations, on the morning of the last day of the conference.  As the drill team circulated through the audience, attendees were brought to their feet, as was the case for most of the youth’s presentations and special events.  This crowd was by no mistake in complete support of the youth and their individual successes.  These special events scattered throughout the conference’s agenda undoubtedly stole the show, highlighting why every single one of us spent our time and money to attend, for our shared mission to better serve and support America’s children.

For the first time in over half a decade, the OJJDP provided a national forum for juvenile justice-involved proponents to gather, learn, and even openly and honestly discuss true opportunities and strategies for reform.  The OJJDP “Children’s Justice and Safety” conference emphasized a three-component strategy towards reform: unite, build, and lead.  This conference provided a foundation to do just that: unite, build, and lead our juvenile justice systems throughout the nation into systems that will enhance our youth’s already existing strengths into success.

Just one blog entry will not do this conference justice, so stay tuned for more on the OJJDP’s conference in later blogs, coming soon.

Listen to this excellent podcast by Prison Photography's Pete Brook, interviewing CJCJ's Executive Director Daniel Macallair on the history of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the evolution of criminal and juvenile justice in California.

Today, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released their newest publication, No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration.   It presents a fresh review of juvenile justice in America, and makes future recommendations for improving the system.

Highlights include:

~ Roughly 60,500 youths in America are confined in correctional facilities (according to a 2007 census, and not including youths confined temporarily in detention centers).

~ Two of every five confined youths are African-American and one-fifth is Hispanic.

~ Correctional institutions have never been found to reduce the criminality of troubled young people.

We now have overwhelming evidence showing that wholesale incarceration of juvenile offenders is a counterproductive public policy.

~ America’s youth prisons are dangerous, ineffective, unnecessary, obsolete, wasteful, and inadequate.

~ Systemic violence, abuse and excessive use of isolation have been documented in the youth prisons of 39 states since the 1970s.

~ Recidivism rates are uniformly high and incarceration significantly obstructs the youth’s future success in education and employment.

~ Most youth incarcerated in correctional facilities do not need to be there.  Just 12% of confined youth are committed for serious violent offenses. 

~ Youth prisons have become a dumping ground for youth with mental health conditions.

~ Research has shown that best practices that consistently reduce juvenile recidivism are inconsistent with institutional incarceration.

~ Correctional institutions are expensive and a waste of taxpayer money.  Despite high costs they fail to provide even minimum services for rehabilitation.

The data leaves little doubt.  Substantially reducing juvenile incarceration rates has not proven to be a catalyst for more youth crime.

The publication recommends a thoughtful and detailed plan for moving away from America’s historic incarceration-focused approach to troubled youth, and implementation of an effective and coherent reform of the system.   It concludes noting that while many states have reduced incarceration of youths in recent years, the primary cause for closures has been short-term fiscal crises and private class-action lawsuits.  It cautions that this movement away from incarceration must be accompanied with a resilient evidence-driven model that emphasizes public safety, better use of tax dollars, and investment in the rehabilitation of young people involved in the juvenile system.

This is a must-read publication.  Download a full copy here: http://bit.ly/ptZB7x

The Supreme Court decision that California needs to shrink (not release) its prison population has made national headlines, but as I mentioned in my last blog, over the past few years many states have already begun reducing their reliance on incarceration.   What is particularly interesting, as the ACLU  points out in their most recent report, is the overwhelming bi-partisan support for prison reform efforts.  Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, and a handful of other states have successfully taken the initiative because of their recognition that prison reduction is not only a smart fiscal policy but a smart public safety policy.  Although politicians can ruin their careers by being labeled as “soft-on-crime,” these states have shown that there are reasonable alternatives to being “tough-on-crime.”  Republican Kentucky Senator Tom Jenson was quoted as saying his state’s sentencing reform bill is “smart on crime” and Republican Governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback explains,  “Recidivism rates are too high and create too much of a financial burden on states without protecting public safety.  My state and others are reinventing how we do business.” 

The now bulging-at-the-seams prison system in many states is a result of a wave of tough-on-crime legislation that began in the 80’s, such as three strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenders.  Therefore, people sentenced on parole violations and low-level drug offenses have contributed to the national trend of mass-incarceration, magnifying the impact of prison overpopulation.   This has recently created the opportunity for states to embark on bipartisan reform efforts to not only help stabilize their budget but create innovative and smart-on-crime alternatives to incarceration.  Many conservative states that were in a similar position to where California is now, have led the way in instituting prisoner reduction legislation.

Texas prisons, for example, went from a projected increase of 17,000 new prison beds in 2007 to below capacity in 2011, paving the way for an unprecedented state prison closure this year.  The reforms have not only reduced system-swelling, but have led to the desired goal of increased safety.  In the years following the reform efforts, crime rates have continued to drop more than the year before.  In fact, research proves longer sentences have no effect on deterring future crime. 

Research instead demonstrated the “largest effect on recidivism was risk level of offenders, which highlights the need for assessment and provision of appropriate services to address offender needs in order to reduce reoffending.”  The aforementioned states have succeeded by implementing cost-effective measures for pre-trial options, fairer sentencing practices, and strengthening community based programs targeted at those struggling with substance abuse, lack of basic services, and promoting life-skills/independence. 

Here’s a sampling of enacted reforms that work:

~ Decriminalizing/”de-felonizing” drug possession and instead mandating non-prison alternatives including drug treatment and community services
~ Eliminating the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity
~ Eliminating mandatory minimums
~ Ending 3 strikes legislation
~ Front-end reforms such as reduced bail, pre-trial incarceration alternatives, and prevention
~ Back-end reforms such as expanding earned-credit programs, early release of nonviolent offenders, and individualized parole decisions

While California often leads the country with progressive reform efforts, it is not leading the way on the issue of incarceration.  The same issues that are bloating California’s prison population were identified in previously prison-reliant states like Texas, providing hope that California can seek effective rehabilitative options as the state begins to reduce its prison population.  CJCJ has long advocated for smart alternatives to incarceration and if Texas can close prisons, maybe California can too. 

~Emily Luhrs
SSP Case Specialist