By Karen de Sá
San Jose Mercury News
SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. — One year after Santa Clara County set a national precedent for restricting its juvenile hall to offenders ages 13 and older, the county supervisor who championed the policy is furious over the monthlong jailing of a 12-year-old boy.
“The policy was intended for 100 percent of the kids,” said Dave Cortese, president of the Board of Supervisors. “If and when there’s a homicide or an equivalent level of violence, then there may not be other options — but that’s not the case here.”
The policy was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in May 2010 as a result of Mercury News stories on several troubling detentions in recent years. One case involved three siblings in foster care — ages 10, 11 and 12 — who spent five days locked up. Another involved a mentally ill boy who arrived shortly after his 11th birthday and spent almost two years in San Jose’s juvenile hall.
Cortese recently notified a reporter about the apparent disregard for the policy after becoming frustrated by attempts to free the 12-year-old boy from the juvenile hall on Guadalupe Parkway.
Cortese’s office spent weeks advocating for release to a facility more effective in treating a boy his age. The supervisor’s staff presented to attorneys and probation officers involved with the case an eight-page list of alternative placements and interventions specifically addressing his problems with gangs, violence and family relationships.
Because he is a minor, the Bay Area News Group is not naming the boy, who was detained at juvenile hall on May 16 and released Wednesday to his mother and a social worker with a local agency that will provide round-the-clock social work and supervision. The boy will also be monitored electronically with an ankle bracelet.
“We’re advocating for him and all the people who will be impacted if he’s not offered the proper care,” Cortese said. “He needs social services, psychological counseling maybe — he needs a complete separation from gang-affiliated kids.”
Juvenile records are confidential, but professionals who have worked with the 12-year-old Santa Clara County resident describe his case as a difficult one. Sources familiar with his case say he committed at least two violent crimes — including assaulting a staff member at a local agency — and has a history of running away from unlocked facilities.
On May 21, the boy was ordered by juvenile court Judge Jesús Valencia to serve 30 days in juvenile hall.
Sources say the Probation Department had urged the judge to grant the youth and his family intensive “wrap-around” treatment at home. But prosecutors took a harsher approach.
Deputy district attorney Chris Arriola, who supervises the juvenile unit, said his office does not make recommendations to the court that a very young person be sent to juvenile hall in a light manner. He would not comment on the particular case, but did say: “The D.A. agrees with the policy to try and keep children 13 and younger out of juvenile hall — wholeheartedly. We look at only the most serious cases in regard to detaining young minors. However, there are always exceptions.”
When county supervisors set a minimum age limit for juvenile hall admission, it was believed to be the first policy of its kind on the nation. And Cortese says he’s not aware of any other jurisdictions that have followed suit.
Probation Chief Sheila Mitchell said there have been three young people under age 13 in detention since the policy passed, but one of them only stayed one night.
Details about the length of confinement of the other youths were not available.
Agreeing with many juvenile justice experts, Cortese said contact with older, more hardened offenders and the punitive environment of the jail-like juvenile hall does not help youthful offenders get the help they need to reject crime.
In his “State of the County” speech in January, Cortese sought to broaden the policy, vowing to make 16 the minimum age for detention.
While judges retain the ultimate authority over where to place offenders, county supervisors aimed their policy at influencing the judges and probation officers who make recommendations to the court.
Although it’s not uncommon for children under age 13 to be arrested, the policy’s intent is for them to serve their time in alternative settings, including supervision at home, foster care with intensive services, and small, community-based treatment centers.
In an email, Patrick Tondreau, presiding judge of the Juvenile Court, wrote: “As an ongoing concern, we are very focused on trying to prevent any young minors from coming into the hall, and if they do we work hard to find an alternative to get them out of the hall as quick as possible.”
While not referring to any specific case, he added: “Unfortunately, there are occasional times when the circumstances dictate the need to detain a young minor.”
But a staffer with Cortese’s office, Enrique Flores, maintained that the courts overlooked numerous alternative placements presented to attorneys involved with the case of the 12-year-old. One suggested placement included a residential boys academy that features daily 6 a.m. military-style drills, intensive supervision and life skills classes.
Flores, a youth-intervention specialist who has mentored the boy, described him as looking older than his age and being highly susceptible to the influences of older gang members in his neighborhood.
Flores said he’s “receptive, like a sponge,” adding that could lead him to more criminality, or toward a better path if he gets help quickly.
With that knowledge, Cortese said, he is tired of hearing juvenile justice officials complain there are no other options than the juvenile hall. He said those options do exist and are simply not taken advantage of.
“And who pays?” he asked. “The boy and society, because they’re going to release a more hardened criminal instead of a rehabilitated human being.”
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