Especially in the face of the news that 11 teens have fled from
the William F. James Boys Ranch since April 1, we
’re glad to see that Santa Clara County supervisors approved
installation of a GPS and ankle bracelet system at the escape-prone
facility. Even better is the news that the $410,000 system should
be operating within a month.
Especially in the face of the news that 11 teens have fled from the William F. James Boys Ranch since April 1, we’re glad to see that Santa Clara County supervisors approved installation of a GPS and ankle bracelet system at the escape-prone facility. Even better is the news that the $410,000 system should be operating within a month.
The mere presence of a GPS-enabled bracelet around their ankles should prevent some wards from even considering an escape attempt. For those who aren’t that smart, the bracelets will help authorities catch those who do decide to flee as quickly as possible. We’re also encouraged by two other developments in the boys ranch saga. The first encouraging sign is that county officials are considering a fence at the boys ranch. Instead of constructing a $3 million to $5 million fence around the perimeter of the property, officials are now looking into the cost of building a small fence around the ranch’s buildings.
The other positive development is that County Supervisor Don Gage and Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy plan to meet with Supervising Juvenile Court Judge Richard Loftus.
“We will talk about who they are sending to this facility and make sure they understand what is happening,” Kennedy said of the meeting, for which no date has been set.
We hope that this meeting can begin to address the important issues about what type of juvenile offenders the James Boys Ranch is designed to serve and how to ensure that only those offenders are housed there.
We also wonder if there is an internal problem at the county Probation Department’s facility in northeast Morgan Hill that is causing the recent surge in escape attempts. Boys are sent to the ranch for 120-day terms at a facility that is supposed to be much easier than Juvenile Hall and the California Youth Authority. Why are so many boys trying to escape? If the unfenced, unlocked facility prevents too big a temptation, then the ankle bracelets should greatly reduce the lure.
However, if there are internal problems at the ranch, then the ankle bracelets are a bandage, not a cure. We encourage county supervisors to take a close look at ranch operations to ensure that it is meeting its goal of rehabilitating youth sent there, and meeting its duty of protecting the wards entrusted to its care. If there are problems at the boys ranch – and we don’t know that that is the case – the responsibility to uncover them lies with county officials. If there are problems at the boys ranch, administrators need to find and fix them before a grand jury becomes involved.
We commend county officials for the steps they’ve taken to stem the tide of escapes from the James Boys Ranch. We hope that they’re simultaneously working to find out why so many boys are so desperate to escape the facility.
