CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS RELEASE
		www.cjcj.org

For Immediate Release: June 18, 2001

An Analysis Of San Francisco Juvenile Justice Reforms During The Brown Administration

CONTACT: Daniel Macallair
E-mail: [dmacallair@cjcj.org]
Tel: (415) 621-5661 x310

COLEMAN ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH

459 Vienna Street
San Francisco, CA 94112
Tel: (415) 239-0161
Fax: (415) 239-0584

NEW STUDY FINDS SAN FRANCISCO JUVENILE REFORMS FAILING DESPITE $15 MILLION IN NEW PROGRAMS AND DECLING YOUTH CRIME, THE CITY'S YOUTH DETENTION POPULATION INCREASED AT UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS

CITY OFFICIALS SHOCKED

[San Francisco] Monday, June 18- The Justice Policy Institute will submit to the Board of Supervisors a sobering report entitled, "An Analysis of San Francisco Juvenile Justice Reforms During the Brown Administration."

The new analysis of San Francisco's juvenile justice reform efforts by two nationally recognized youth policy experts found that San Francisco is now detaining youth at unprecedented levels. The report, completed on the request of San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, found that the city's youth detention population was increasing despite a declining youth population and youth crime rate and the expenditure of over $15 million in new diversion programs by the Brown administration. The researchers found that girls of color are being detained at twice the level of ten years ago and are the primary reason for the increased detention levels.

Supervisor Gonzalez reacted with shock to the study's findings and said that he would initiate legislative action to address the problem. "I am stunned by these numbers particularly the worsening situation for minority girls, he said. There is no excuse for these disparities."

• Detention bookings rose from the equivalent of 378 per 1,000 juvenile arrests to 856 per 1,000 juvenile arrests, with the result that an arrested juvenile is nearly twice as likely to be confined today that in the 1980's.
• Juvenile arrests decline 46%, yet juvenile detention bookings increase 22% over the past 15 years.
• The increased rate of detention bookings is unrelated to overall juvenile crime since the detention rate rose while the felony arrest rate fell.
• While San Francisco's disproportionate confinement of African American and Hispanic youth had been declining up until 1992 but it increased sharply in recent years. The city's African American youth are subject to detention at higher rates, relative to their population, than at any time in recent history.
• African American girls, who account for just one-sixth of San Francisco's juvenile arrests, comprised the overwhelming majority of the city's entire increase in bookings.
• Hispanic and Pacific Islander girls account for fewer than 4% of the city's arrests but comprised nearly half (46%) of the bookings increase.

Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval asserted that, "this appears to be another issue in which there needs to be accountability. How could the city spend $20 million and have nothing to show for it? Last year the grand jury reached similar conclusions about the juvenile justice reforms and I think it is time for the Board to take definitive action."

Supervisor Matt Gonzalez has called a press conference at noon, Monday, June 18 at City Hall Room 278 to release the study authored by the Justice Policy Institute and the Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice. Speakers include: Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, Dan Macallair (Vice-President, CJCJ) Supervisor Tom Ammiano, Marlene Sanchez (Program Director, Center for Young Women's Development), Lourdes Duarte (parent), Mari Villaluna, (San Francisco Youth Commission) Lateefah Simon, (Executive Director, Center for Young Women's Development), NTanya Lee, (Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth).

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