When voters go to the polls next March, they will be asked to
decide if the county Board of Supervisors should control Santa
Clara County
’s Juvenile Hall, which is currently under the supervision of
the Superior Court. We think voters should approve this change.
When voters go to the polls next March, they will be asked to decide if the county Board of Supervisors should control Santa Clara County’s Juvenile Hall, which is currently under the supervision of the Superior Court. We think voters should approve this change.
The county’s embattled juvenile justice system, which has weathered storm after storm of controversy surrounding alleged mistreatment of inmates, is due for a complete overhaul. The current skewed system puts the budget in the hands of the supervisors, but the hiring of the chief and management of the detention facility and youth ranches in the hands of the Superior Court.
If voters approve the supervisors’ plan, they would have authority of the juvenile justice chief, and an advisory board would be established to help oversee the county’s juvenile justice system.
The plan makes sense for several reasons:
• The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected officials. If residents don’t approve of the job they’re doing running the county’s juvenile detention facilities, they can vote them out of office. While judges are elected, there is far less direct control and oversight than if the control was in the county executive’s office and board of supervisors.
• The board holds regularly scheduled public meetings, bringing much-needed ‘sunshine’ into the management of juvenile justice operations.
• The board pays for the juvenile detention facilities – it only makes sense that those who hold the purse strings have ultimate responsibility for the facilities’ operation.
Clearly, the county’s juvenile justice system is badly broken now. After reports surfaced that approximately two dozen young men had been beaten since 1994 while incarcerated in county youth detention facilities, supervisors hired an auditor to take an in-depth look at the system.
That auditor’s scathing report said the culture in the county’s youth justice system was more like that of an adult prison – and the auditor personally witnessed the abuse by seven staff members of a 13-year-old, 70-pound handcuffed boy.
Among dozens of other changes, the auditor recommended changes in the juvenile justice system’s leadership structure.
If you’re not already registered to vote, perhaps the urgency of this issue will motivate you to take the few moments necessary to accomplish that basic responsibility of civic duty so you can vote on March 2.
Culture change is never easy or immediate, but an overhaul of the top of the broken organization is the smart place to start. If we fail, we’ll pay with hardened or broken young men instead of rehabilitated, society-enhancing citizens. Taxpayers will pay with lawsuits brought by abused inmates.
Vote to approve having the Board of Supervisors take responsibility for our juvenile detention facilities. Our youth – and taxpayers’ wallets – are depending on it.
