According to Humes Over Half of Juveniles Arrested Once Are Never Arrested Again
Marie shivered beneath a sparse blanket on her beginning night in juvenile hall, her but view an occasional glimpse of a guard checking on her through the window in her prison cell door.
Her criminal offense was minor: refusing to obey police force officers who came into her bedchamber to question her about skipping schoolhouse. Three weeks earlier, the 16-year-sometime girl had been defenseless shoplifting a bottle of cognac.
Over the next year, another shoplifting charge and a string of probation violations landed her dorsum in Marin Canton's juvenile lockup for a full of 222 days, records prove. That'due south about four months longer than the typical adult would spend in jail afterward a felony drug conviction.
Jessica Christian / The Chronicle
"I was confused and mad and frustrated considering I didn't empathize why I was in that location. I didn't hurt anybody," said Marie, who asked to be identified by her middle proper name. In general, The Chronicle does non identify juveniles accused of crimes to protect their privacy, under the newsroom's reporting policies.
Near the serial
Tearing criminal offence by youths in California plummeted over the past two decades and arrests of juveniles for tearing felonies brutal dramatically. Juvenile halls that were expanded across the country stand generally empty, while their costs per youth take skyrocketed. This Relate investigation examines this unexpected and largely unrecognized shift and its implications for criminal justice and society. A team of Chronicle journalists has spent the twelvemonth requesting numerous public records, reviewing federal, state and county data, interviewing canton juvenile authorities and juvenile justice experts, and talking with young people currently or formerly incarcerated. Read all our reporting at
sfchronicle.com/vanishingviolence.
Probation chiefs and other officials in many counties beyond California say juvenile halls, which stand mostly empty post-obit years of steep declines in youth law-breaking, primarily concur the about serious and violent criminals. But a Relate investigation constitute that is not true: Thousands of teens similar Marie are held for minor offenses.
State police force prohibits the detention of children and teenagers in juvenile halls unless they pose a danger to themselves or the community, are a flight risk or would non be safety if released. Yet probation officers and judges broadly interpret that standard, often belongings young people in cells for low-level crimes, even if they pose fiddling take chances to the public.
State data evidence that virtually a tertiary of kids held in California's juvenile halls in the past two years were accused of misdemeanor crimes or probation violations related to those offenses.
One in v – roughly 550 a month – were booked solely on technical probation violations – mostly noncriminal offenses such as habitually skipping school, breaking curfew or drinking alcohol.
Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
And nearly 1 in x of those held in juvenile halls were there merely awaiting placement in foster homes or residential treatment programs. Sometimes they were held weeks or months because probation officers could non find a identify for them, The Chronicle constitute.
How we reported this story
Larn how The Chronicle constitute and analyzed the data on California'southward juvenile halls it used to report this story
here.
Juvenile authorities argue they must go along these teenagers locked up because of circumstances in their homes or because of their substance abuse problems or prior misconduct. A growing body of inquiry, however, shows that incarcerating young people for lesser offenses can pb to depression, struggles in school and a greater risk of further crime.
To place who is being detained in California's juvenile halls, The Chronicle reviewed statewide figures from the Board of State and Customs Corrections from 2018 and the first one-half of 2019, besides every bit detailed intake logs from five counties that provided them.
In some counties, probation violations accounted for more than half of the bookings into juvenile hall in 2018 and the beginning half of 2019. (Ten rows shown past default.)
▲
All juvenile hall bookings
▲
Probation violation bookings
▲
Percent of bookings for probation violations
Source:
Board of State and Community Corrections
*
These data differ from the county-level figures because they capture every booking at juvenile hall, including those in which youths were detained and chop-chop released. Unlike the canton figures, the state data may not include bookings for all technical violations, such as missing a court date.
Officials at the Board of State and Community Corrections cautioned that their data could contain reporting errors. Many probation departments in California denied requests for booking records, citing privacy laws or saying they didn't maintain the information.
The analysis was washed equally part of "Vanishing Violence," a yearlong Relate investigation that has documented the state's plummeting youth crime. The historic shift offers an opportunity for the state to re-create its juvenile justice system, advocates say, but many counties are non embracing reform efforts.
In add-on to those held on minor offenses, California's youth detention centers concord many teens accused of serious crimes. In mid-June, at to the lowest degree 700 of two,370 youths held in juvenile halls across the state were awaiting trial on vehement felony charges, including robbery, murder and rape.
Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
Just in Marin County, where Marie lives, almost 80% of those held at least one night in juvenile hall in the menstruum examined by The Chronicle were there for misdemeanors – nigh nonviolent – or probation violations, county intake records bear witness. In El Dorado County, which also provided data to The Chronicle, the rate was 72%.
Probation officials who oversee juvenile halls said the state and county figures don't reflect oft circuitous circumstances involved in these detentions. Teenagers accused of minor crimes or violations might be held because they live on the streets or in dangerous homes, or are at-gamble of existence sexually trafficked. Misdemeanor offenses, they said, can follow a troubled history, including arrests for serious crimes, elevating a case.
Relate summary: One youth's experience
A 16-year-erstwhile white girl was booked into juvenile hall after her arrest on suspicion of two misdemeanor property crimes, spending 17 days in custody. Over the side by side two years she was detained for four probation violations, spending at least 350 days in juvenile hall, including time in an in-custody treatment program.
"When you've got kids acting out, using drugs, running away from dwelling house, engaging in risky behavior, there's a natural inclination to want to keep the kid safe, and where tin we practice that? The juvenile hall," said Tanja Heitman, the chief probation officer in Santa Barbara County, where at least half of the overnight admissions to the canton detention heart in 2018 and 2019 were for misdemeanors or probation violations.
She acknowledged the numbers were not ideal, and that detention centers are not appropriate for some of the young people who authorities put there. "We have to build upward plenty alternatives so that when that kid is having difficulties, we have something else to fall dorsum on," Heitman said.
Across California, juvenile halls generally resemble developed jails, despite a state law requiring counties to provide "homelike" settings.
Kids in detention centers typically tin can't possess a pen, pencil or pictures in their cells. They take footling privacy, even when using the bath. Some counties utilise pepper spray to subdue teens who are out of command. And until January, when the state banned the practice, some children were given underwear from a communal supply out of the laundry.
Well-nigh of the teens held in juvenile halls are people of colour. The Westward. Haywood Burns Found, a national nonprofit group focused on justice reform and racial bias, found that more than than 80% of children and teens detained in California in contempo years were black or Latino, in an analysis of state Department of Justice information done for The Chronicle. Statewide, blacks or Latinos made up 58% of the population aged x to 17.
In Marin County, for example, Latinos made up 54% of those detained in 2018 and the first half of 2019 – more than than twice Marin'south proportion of Latinos aged x to 17, according to probation records. About 19% were African American, half dozen times the proportion of blackness youths in the county.
"There is overwhelming evidence of the impairment that fifty-fifty one nighttime in detention causes immature people," said Laura Ridolfi, policy director at the Burns Institute. "You're interrupting everything in that immature person'south life, and sometimes they can't get back on track."
Many jailed for misdemeanors
Handling of juvenile offenders has been evolving since the mid-1990s, when a crime moving ridge gripped California. Arrests for violent felonies by young offenders peaked at threescore per solar day, juvenile halls filled, and fears of a coming crush of teen criminals prompted politicians and voters to tighten laws and vastly aggrandize juvenile detention centers.
In the following decades, youth arrests plummeted and policies softened equally researchers found that focusing on penalization harmed immature people and fabricated communities less safe. Counties expanded services in juvenile halls and diverted children and teenagers to rehabilitative programs. The detention rate dipped to i of the everyman levels in recent history, co-ordinate to the Primary Probation Officers of California, a lobbying group.
The proportion of youths held in juvenile hall for misdemeanors or related violations in 2018 and the offset half of 2019 varied greatly from county to canton. (X rows shown by default.)
▲
Boilerplate population in juvenile hall
▲
Average population in juvenile hall due to misdemeanors
▲
Percent in juvenile hall due to misdemeanors
Source:
Lath of State and Community Corrections
*
The figures are based on an average of 18 point-in-time counts of who was in juvenile hall. The data differ from the county-level figures considering they capture every booking at juvenile hall, including those in which youths were detained and speedily released. Misdemeanors include probation violations related to misdemeanor offenses.
"The response was previously to lock them up and throw away the key, but that'due south all changed," said Michael Harris, an attorney at the National Center for Youth Police. "The era of mass incarceration is being dialed back."
Still, counties continued to lock up thousands of young people in recent years for misdemeanor offenses. Those tin can include public intoxication, petty theft, vandalism and getting in fights that don't result in serious injuries.
Local information obtained by The Chronicle show that in El Dorado County about xl% of the 175 overnight admissions to juvenile hall in 2018 and the first half of 2019 were for misdemeanor crimes. Those jailed spent an average of 17 days in custody, according to intake records. I male child was held for 23 days after beingness arrested for misdemeanor bombardment and resisting arrest, though it was his showtime time in the canton detention center.
In Fresno County, about ane-fifth of the i,669 overnight admissions into juvenile hall in the same period were for misdemeanors, according to probation information. One of those teenagers, who had never been booked earlier, was held 19 days after existence arrested on suspicion of driving without a license.
Unlike adults, juveniles are not detained or sentenced based on the severity of their crime. Instead, judges and probation officials look beyond the offense, focusing too on the likelihood that a young person volition commit future crimes or be harmed if left in the customs. Some counties use chance-assessment questionnaires to help guide the detention decision, while others rely more heavily on probation officers' judgment.
Many juvenile justice experts argue that, in well-nigh cases, locking up young people for misdemeanor offenses has harmful consequences. Among them: low-level offenders are more likely to reoffend if they are detained alongside those accused of more serious crimes.
The Chronicle found many cases in which officials opted for solitude, even for minor crimes, citing abuse or neglect in the domicile or a history of truancy, gang affiliation, alcohol employ or other runaway beliefs.
The 24-hour interval Marie skipped class, her worried mom, at the urging of school officials, called the police to help notice her. By the time officers arrived at their home that evening, Marie had already returned.
Equally officers questioned Marie in her room near the truancy and her beingness missing from abode that day, she ignored commands to sit and take her hands out of her pocket. When officers moved to restrain her, she pulled her arm away. 1 of the officers handcuffed her on her bed and they charged her with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor.
Marie spent 29 days in juvenile hall in San Rafael waiting for her case to work its manner through the courtroom organization, co-ordinate to county records. She woke at 7 each morning and volunteered to set breakfast trays and help make clean, she said, and so she could spend time out of her cell. Anxiety reduced her appetite and kept her up at night as she idea almost her dwelling house and family.
"I'd think near whether my cat missed me," she said.
Jessica Christian / The Relate
A week afterward beingness released, Marie stole alcohol and was arrested. She said she had felt overwhelmed past the requirements of probation – meeting a 7 p.m. curfew, abstaining from booze, regularly attending schoolhouse and other atmospheric condition. She was sent back to juvenile hall, and then placed twice in residential treatment programs, one 100 miles from home. She ran away from those programs, resulting in probation violations and more fourth dimension in custody.
In all, betwixt October 2018 and August 2019, the Latina teen was jailed for 7½ months. Marie's longest stint, 97 days, included two months of only waiting: She had been ordered to a residential treatment facility, merely probation officials were unable to secure an advisable placement.
Marie's mom said she was merely thinking of her girl's well-being when she called government for help. But instead, the ordeal left her grappling with guilt and regret. She felt helpless as she watched her daughter struggle in custody.
"They were telling her she was a failure, she would never graduate, and at that betoken, information technology seemed like she was adopting everything they were saying most her," said Marie's mother, referring to comments from the approximate and probation officers. "They put her in the position to give up."
The Chronicle found many similar cases in Marin County in recent years. A 13-yr-old Latino boy who had never been in juvenile hall spent 57 days at that place subsequently his abort on suspicion of public intoxication. Some other Latino teenager with no prior bookings in the canton spent 19 days in juvenile hall on a misdemeanor charge of resisting abort.
Probation officials dedicated those detentions, citing chronic truancy, drug use, potential gang activity and, in the get-go case, the parents' inability to control their kid.
County officials provided limited information about Marie's instance, citing privacy laws, simply said her failure to regularly attend schoolhouse and "chronic runaway behavior" were considered when detaining her. In full general, Manager of Probation Services Eric Olson said, a host of factors influence the determination to agree someone, including concerns for a teen's safe.
"We're not in the business of trying to keep kids here longer than they need to exist," Olson said. Just, he said, "If y'all accept a kid who tested positive for Xanax or meth, are you going to let that kid stay at home when nosotros know about the number of deaths related to those substances?"
Judge Beverly Wood, who hears all delinquency cases in Marin County, said juvenile hall is a necessary "stabilization" tool for minors who are in mental wellness crunch, are sobering upwards from drug use, or need to cool off after fights with family unit members. Sometimes, she added, it'southward the only place immature people can receive intensive and necessary treatment.
"I can't have a dominion that says if it's a misdemeanor you don't go in the hall – that would be dangerous," Forest said. "What if that pocket-sized was 5150'd (forced into a psychiatric hold) two days agone, or they overdosed and were lying in the street? ... I can't send them home," because they might hurt themselves or others.
Youth advocates debate there are better options for addressing these bug, such as providing mental wellness handling or other services out of custody.
"If they're concerned nigh safety in the dwelling house, I'm non sure how that leads to the conclusion that you should lock up the child," said Meredith Desautels, a staff chaser at the Youth Law Heart in San Francisco, which advocates for juvenile justice reforms. "Separating someone from their family unit at that moment of crisis seems and so counterproductive."
Marie doesn't sympathise why she was removed from her dwelling house. "I could see if you were trying to take me abroad from drug dealers, prostitution, something serious," she said. "But you're taking me away from a family unit that loves me, cares well-nigh me, wants ameliorate for me."
Probation violations lengthen stays
California constabulary bars juvenile halls from interim as "penal institutions" and says they instead should exist safe and supportive. Just The Relate found that counties frequently treat teenagers like adults, putting them back in cells when they trip upwards while on probation.
Yalonda One thousand. James / The Relate
In 2018 and 2019, according to state data, nearly 20% of those booked into juvenile hall were in that location for violating conditions of probation.
Daniel Casillas was arrested for the kickoff fourth dimension at age thirteen later he tagged a wall at a Redwood Urban center school with his street signature.
The offense, in 2010, was charged as a felony because the damage was estimated at more than than $400. He cycled in and out of San Mateo Canton'due south juvenile hall while on probation, spending more than two years behind bars primarily for noncriminal violations: beingness late to school, riding in a car with a friend who was wearing gang colors, drinking alcohol and missing a x p.k. curfew telephone call to his probation officeholder.
"I connected to become in and out of juvenile hall … thirty days over here, twoscore days over here," said Casillas, now 22. "I became institutionalized after my start few times. I thought, 'This isn't bad. Information technology's kind of like twenty-four hours care.' It kind of became a 2nd abode to me."
The vandalism charge was the but felony ever faced by Casillas, who has since served as a juvenile justice commissioner in San Mateo Canton.
Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle
"My story is not an individual'south story," Casillas said. "It's one that many, many kids will tell you."
Immature offenders tin confront years on probation. Breaking any of the many rules they must follow tin consequence in repeated stints in custody. In Marin Canton, for example, the odds were 50-fifty that a young person under 17 booked into juvenile hall for a crime in 2016 would subsequently return for a probation violation, according to a review of 60 cases in contempo years. That revolving door has long troubled juvenile justice reformers.
Jailing kids for deportment considered by many to exist typical teenage behavior is a self-defeating and antiquated exercise, said Nate Balis, director of the Annie Due east. Casey Foundation'southward Juvenile Justice Strategy Group, which works with counties to limit youth incarceration.
How one day turns into
A 13-year-old girl is arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor piddling theft after multiple prior referrals to Marin County'southward probation department. Shortly afterward release, she is detained for a probation violation. The girl is sent to a residential treatment program and she runs away – a probation violation that lands her dorsum in juvenile hall. She is detained a second time for running abroad from a residential handling program. The daughter is arrested after allegedly assaulting a hospital worker and is charged with resisting arrest and violating probation. The teenager was withal in juvenile hall equally of November. 1.
solar day for probation violation
"We take an approach that takes a rule-breaking kid and gives them a ready of rules they tin can't possibly follow," he said. "That we would remove them from their homes and put them in a jail-like setting for breaking rules is really troubling."
In some California counties – Marin, Napa, Humboldt, Monterey – at least half the young offenders booked into juvenile hall in 2018 and the beginning half of 2019 were detained solely for probation violations, co-ordinate to state data.
In 2017, a xiv-twelvemonth-one-time Latino boy was locked up in Marin County for 10 days for misdemeanor resisting abort and stealing alcohol, the teen'south showtime time in juvenile hall. Over the side by side 18 months, nine probation violations and one misdemeanor resisting abort charge added 245 days.
In El Dorado County in 2017, a sixteen-twelvemonth-erstwhile girl was booked into juvenile hall briefly for misdemeanor bombardment and getting into a fight at school. The following year, she was detained for two technical violations, spending a combined 194 days in custody.
El Dorado County Probation Chief Brian Richart said officers typically exhaust all options and resources before jailing kids for violations.
"All you come across on paper is that they're violating due to a dirty drug test, but that's only the tip of an iceberg that'south huge under the surface," he said. "When we detain it's considering there's an urgent or emergent set of circumstances we're looking to abate," such as a repeated failure to stay off drugs, go to school or follow rules.
Some leaders in the field want to restrict the exercise. The National Found of Corrections, part of the federal Department of Justice, said in a 2015 resource guide for juvenile justice professionals that "juvenile detention is not considered appropriate" for youths who commit probation violations. Other organizations, including the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, take made like recommendations.
In Santa Cruz County, officials said teens on probation demand to follow just rules that are relevant, such as drug tests for those with known substance-corruption problems. The county also avoids penalties for violations, said Valerie Thompson, banana main probation officer. As a outcome, the number of immature people the county holds on probation violations has fallen from 35% of all bookings in 2000 to 16% in 2019, according to country data.
Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
The canton has "taken a step back from a harsh response to what is really normal teenage behavior," Thompson said. "If we come across kids are struggling, nosotros give them resources to assistance them brand meliorate decisions rather than lock them upward."
Doing 'dead time'
Among those being held in California'due south juvenile hall are many kids who are stuck at that place waiting for somewhere else to go. They have been ordered transferred to foster homes, therapeutic group homes or handling programs, just are ofttimes held for weeks or months while government effort and neglect to identify them, probation officials and public defenders said.
Officials phone call information technology "dead fourth dimension." In some counties, about i-fifth of those held in juvenile hall were awaiting an out-of-habitation placement, according to quarterly snapshot figures reported to the country over the by eighteen months.
"When they're doing dead time, they're demoralized," said Patti Lee, San Francisco's public defender overseeing juvenile cases. "They surrender hope. It'due south expressionless time, newspaper processing time. … They deteriorate with each passing day."
Such delays are common across the country, with foster homes unable or unwilling to take in immature people with the most serious bug, including mental disease, and a lack of beds at many licensed residential handling facilities, officials said.
Relate summary: One youth's experience
An African American teenager spent 23 days in juvenile hall after his abort on suspicion of misdemeanor battery and resisting arrest. Several months later on release, a probation violation landed him back in juvenile hall for 118 days – including 51 days of "dead time" as he waited for an out-of-home placement.
"We are constantly looking all over the state" for an appropriate placement, said Santa Clara County Judge Katherine Lucero, adding that the canton has prioritized placing youths with relatives whenever possible. "Because it'south government and bureaucracy, everything takes time. Meanwhile, you lot accept a young person in custody for likewise long."
Kelli, a higher student who grew upward in foster care in the Bay Surface area, recalled the time she spent locked up in San Francisco's juvenile hall at age 14 waiting to be placed in a group dwelling.
She had spent threescore days in custody over a probation violation related to the theft of a cell phone when she was 12. On her release date, she wrote a good day alphabetic character to her friend in juvenile hall, but she remained jailed for another three weeks because at that place was no home bachelor, she said.
Kelli, who was orphaned as an infant, had no visitors or phone calls during that fourth dimension. Emotional outbursts and fights landed her in 24-hour solitary confinement twice, she said.
"I was dying to get out of there ... and then all my hopes got dropped," said Kelli, at present 20. The Relate agreed to withhold her last name to maintain her privacy. "I was so mad. I was and so hurt."
Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
Cases like Kelli's are common, said Rachel Draznin-Nagy, a Contra Costa County juvenile public defender. "Often, the youth (waiting) are not those with the worst carry," she said, simply the ones who don't have parents or whose families aren't giving them the help they need.
Dead time has been a problem for many years. A 2005 report by the legal advocacy grouping Youth Police force Center found that the majority of young people in several California counties spent more than than a month waiting for a placement. Many had serious mental health needs and ofttimes were detained for pocket-sized crimes, researchers found.
Sue Burrell, ane of the report's authors and a legal practiced in juvenile justice, said she has "no reason to believe information technology'south whatsoever different now."
'Nowhere else to get'
For young people like Marie, Daniel and Kelli, the organisation should be able to offer alternatives to incarceration, dozens of experts and probation officials told The Relate.
"Most youth coming into contact with the juvenile justice system don't benefit from time in juvenile hall, fifty-fifty if we run a great facility and provide a lot of therapeutic programs," said Heitman, Santa Barbara County's probation main. "It'due south a very hard environment for a developing youth to be exposed to."
Still, options across locked facilities are limited, officials said, despite more than than $300 million in state grants available to probation departments final year to fund a host of services, including alternatives to incarceration. The shortage of other programs for young offenders means a prison cell is often the default for those who pose little risk to the customs but may be dealing with mental health conditions or substance abuse, or are stuck in an unstable home.
Chronicle summary: 1 youth's experience
A xvi-twelvemonth-sometime Latino boy was briefly detained after his arrest on suspicion of misdemeanor battery, the starting time time he was held in juvenile hall. Over the next year, he was locked upward for three probation violations and for providing a imitation identification to a peace officer, spending a combined 98 days in custody.
"In some counties, there's convincing evidence that juvenile halls serve equally residual holding tanks for kids with mental health problems that no one else can handle," said David Steinhart, director of the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program in Marin Canton, which advocates for alternatives to youth incarceration.
The cost and consequences of incarcerating young offenders has spurred public officials across California to re-examine the use of juvenile halls. San Francisco supervisors, citing The Relate's "Vanishing Violence" series, voted in June to shut down juvenile hall past the stop of 2021, saying that few of those in custody required a maximum-security cell. San Mateo and Yolo counties are considering similar options.
In Marin County, officials accept considered downsizing or endmost their detention heart, which was two-thirds empty when Marie was there, and adding options across secure confinement. While the juvenile hall was once filled with violent offenders with gang ties, "What I'k seeing at present is a bunch of out-of-control kids with mental health issues," said Probation Main Mike Daly.
Equally The Chronicle prepared to publish this investigation, the Chief Probation Officers of California, which advocates for county probation officials, proposed irresolute the way the state treats youth offenders. The draft proposal would, among other things, limit probation conditions and open up juvenile halls to young people ages eighteen and nineteen.
Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
Marie, who has been out of juvenile hall since early Baronial, is still trying to brand sense of her time there.
Anxious from the ordeal, she couldn't sleep in her bed at home at first, so she shared a room with her mother. She said she gained an appreciation of things she had taken for granted: Using her own soap in the shower, feeling the sun on her face while lying in her hammock, walking her dogs.
"At that place'due south not a certain fourth dimension when I get to be exterior anymore," she said, recalling the one hr of fresh air she was allowed each day when in custody. "I get to be exterior all twenty-four hour period if I desire to now."
She hopes to graduate high school early and wants to advocate for young people like herself in the juvenile justice system. But, she said, nothing volition bring back the lost x months of her life that started with a stolen canteen of liquor.
"Information technology'due south like your life stops, but life on the outside keeps going on," Marie said. "People alter, circumstances change, but you lot're stuck when yous're in there. Null changes for yous."
Source: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2019/vanishing-violence-major-time/
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