Worried Morgan Hill residents are demanding that the county
drastically improve security at a boys
’ detention center or move the ranch to a more rural
location.
Worried Morgan Hill residents are demanding that the county drastically improve security at a boys’ detention center or move the ranch to a more rural location.
One homeowner says he feels like he lives in “east L.A.,” but county officials say the residents need to face the realities of living in a more violent society, and some homeowners say their neighbors are cultivating an “environment of fear.”
Concerned homeowners said earlier this week that they were shocked to discover that some of the boys at the minimum security ranch are repeat violent offenders and that the ranch has averaged more than one escape a week over the last five years. About 80 percent of the runaways either self-surrender or are later apprehended.
“The number one issue is the people they’re sending there,” said David Cervantes, who has lived about a quarter-mile from the ranch with his wife and three kids for about six years. “We had no idea the types of profiles of the kids who are in there.”
Of the 1,068 boys who have been remanded to the ranch since January 2000, more than half were convicted of property crimes or crimes against people. More than a quarter of the population has been found guilty of “serious crimes against people,” usually felony assault with a deadly weapon, but there have also been a few cases of arson, kidnapping, domestic violence and rape, according to county statistics.
Tuesday, about 60 residents packed a conference room at Depaul Health Center, about a mile from the ranch, to vent their frustrations at county officials, who convened the meeting in response to community outrage over a gang fight Jan. 12 at the William F. James Ranch that led to the escape of four juveniles. Two of those juveniles are still at large.
Speaking at the meeting, Sheila E. Mitchell, who four months ago became Santa Clara County’s chief probation officer, said no rapists had been referred to the ranch since 2003, and that none would be in the future.
“I can’t explain why those boys were there, but there are none there now,” Mitchell said. “Under my watch, we will never have a boy there charged with rape.”
But when residents demanded a promise from Mitchell that no violent offenders would be sent to the ranch, she answered that ultimate authority over referrals rest not with her department but with the judiciary, a fact Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage said frustrates county officials.
“We’re responsible for the ranch but not for who goes in,” Gage said. “We try to work with judges to find reasonable alternatives.”
Gage said the county’s relationship with its judges is delicate because last year county voters shifted control of the probation department from the bench to the board of supervisors.
“We can’t just tell them what to do,” Gage said. “We have to work with them. Ask them for help.”
Gage told the crowd that county officials need “a little time and a little understanding” to sort out problems with the ranch.
Morgan Hill Chief of Police Bruce Cumming described the meeting as productive.
“I thought Santa Clara County handled the meeting well, with a lot of time for questions from residents,” Cumming said. “They were very direct with their responses.”
Cumming said, in his opinion, the county has been quite responsive.
“There have been no escapes since the infamous incident (in January) and the new superintendent, Mike Simms, is very professional and is taking care of business.”
There is a limited number of incarceration alternatives for youthful offenders in Santa Clara County. The most serious offenders are sent to maximum security facilities operated by the California Youth Authority or housed at Juvenile Hall. Some youths are being sent out of the county and state to boot-camp-like programs such as Rites of Passage in Nevada, but all but the most egregious offenders are usually sent to minimum security facilities like James Ranch.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to remove some offenders from the troubled CYA may put even more pressure on judges to remand juveniles to the James Ranch.
Homeowners say that they knew about James Ranch when they moved in, but were told by real estate agents and law enforcement officials that it housed only addicts, petty thieves and vandals.
A spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday that his agency would refer all inquiries about the ranch to the probation department.
The facility, located in a wooded, rural area at 19050 Malaguerra Ave. in northeast Morgan Hill, sits on 53 acres below Anderson Reservoir. There is no fence around the sprawling compound and state law prohibits officials from locking the doors. The ranch has the capacity to house 96 male juvenile offenders between the ages of 15 and 18 for 120-day terms.
Until June 30, 2004, the Morgan Hill site housed the Harold Holden Ranch and James F. Boys Ranch. At that time, the younger boys were moved to the Murial Wright center at the top of Bernal Road in southwest San Jose near Santa Teresa Park and IBM.
The Wright center previously had housed only girls.
Residents have expressed concern about the Morgan Hill facility in the past, but many were especially outraged by the January gang fight that involved 14 inmates.
“Gangs aren’t in our neighborhoods except for the ones you bring in,” resident Ted Helvey said Tuesday night. “This is no longer a rural area, it’s suburban.”
Helvey was one of several attendees who suggested that it would be easy for the county to sell the land to developers and build a new ranch in a less populated area, perhaps with corporate donations.
Gage said the land might fetch a handsome price, but it would never be enough to buy new land and finance construction of a new facility. He said relocating to a rural, unincorporated part of the county would also require an investment in water and sewage infrastructure.
County Executive Pete Kutras Jr., a Morgan Hill resident, said that he would consider moving the facility a “failure.”
“To me, moving the facility indicates we failed on all other options,” Kutras said. “It means we weren’t able to prevent escapes. It means we weren’t able to work with the community. Our goal is to stop runaways.”
Many residents also demanded that the county install a fence around the ranch, but that suggestion illustrates the divide forming between neighbors, some of whom don’t want security measures with the potential to lower property values. Many also decried the use of helicopter patrols.
“These are million-dollar homes and I feel like I live in east L.A. when the helicopters are out,” said resident Ashley Trewman.
Tom Mosgrove has lived with his wife and two young children just one street away from the ranch for three and a half years. He was one of a few residents to compliment the progress the county has made in shoring up security over the last few months.
“I don’t believe we should have a fence. Once you make it look like something other than a minimum security facility, that’s what it will become,” Mosgrove said.
Even some of the most vociferous critics of the ranch share that view, saying they worry that a chainlink and razor-wire fence will have on property values.
Mosgrove and his wife think that some of their neighbors are “creating an environment of fright” and “spreading unnecessary fear, anxiety and needless hysteria” in the community.
Tuesday, several residents circulated a letter with those sentiments around their neighborhood. Wednesday morning, Wendy Mosgrove said she found a pile of them crumpled at her front door. Wendy Mosgrove suspects they were all left their by one neighbor, whom she saw toss one at her door Wednesday afternoon.
“Everybody is just so outraged. I just want them to calm down,” Wendy Mosgrove said, “but there are some neighborhood muckrakers around here and if there isn’t some melodrama around, they will find it.”
Dave Cervantes called the Mosgroves’ point of view “ridiculous.” Last summer, he said, an escapee from the ranch came into his yard and terrified his wife and three small children. His wife, Susan, said the juvenile was apprehended by two other inmates who “worked him over pretty good” before taking him back to the ranch.
Kutras said that the county would never send detainees to collect a runaway and that the goal of Tuesday night’s meeting was to address questions like that head on.
“We want the community to feel protected, and be protected, and meet the goal of rehabilitating our youth,” Kutras said. “If people are concerned we need to address those concerns.”
But Kutras also made it clear that Morgan Hill residents need to understand that they live in an inherently more violent world.
“I can’t make violent offenders disappear from the system,” he told the crowd. “Just as society has become more violent, just as adult prisoners have become more violent, we see the same thing in the youth population.”
Since the gang fight, the county and the Morgan Hill Police Department have introduced a number of measures to prevent runaways.
Ranch staff are now charged to notify Morgan Hill police within 10 minutes of an escape. The sheriff’s department is conducting extra patrols through the surrounding neighborhoods and staffs the front gate every day from 8am to 10pm.
The ranch also is providing more staff during the day, which is when the majority of escapes occur. Mitchell said she has instructed her staff to discontinue the practice of returning juveniles to the ranch after multiple escape attempts.
There have been no escapes since the Jan. 12 gang fight, and there is no record of an escapee ever harming a member of the community. Joan Sullivan has lived near the ranch for most of her life and said she’s never worried despite seeing runaways in her yard and on the street.
“I’ve lived here for 44 years and never had a problem,” she said. “I won’t presume there will never be one, but I don’t think there’s anything to be scared of.”
