By Cyn Yamashiro

Do you know who our current Chief of Probation is? Most people don't. In fact, most people don't know that the Los Angeles County Probation Dept. is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in Southern California; employing over 6100 people with an annual budget of over 700 million dollars. Along with the responsibility of supervising adults on probation, the department oversees the one of the largest juvenile justice systems in the country. In Los Angeles County annually, over 50,000 juvenile arrests are recorded, resulting in over 20,000 referrals to the juvenile courts. Three juvenile halls and 18 military-style boot camps house over 4,100 children, more than all other counties in California, combined. The probation department is the sole county agency responsible for juvenile rehabilitation and supervision.

Robert Taylor, the current Probation Department Chief, is set to retire and unbeknownst to many, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is poised to select his replacement. Given the mammoth responsibilities and important impact the new Chief will have on our community, one would think that the selection process would deserve some public comment or hearing. It turns out that the Board of Supervisors disagrees. This appointment is arguably as important as the selection of Chief William Bratton's replacement at the LAPD. However, compare how the city of Los Angeles reached out to the public during the selection process for the chief of the LAPD. In an effort to better understand public sentiment, the city offered an on-line, public survey and sponsored no fewer than five community meetings for the public to share their thoughts on the new chief. But for the new Chief of Probation, the Board has refused to publish the names of the candidates and resists engaging the community in the selection process. Astonishingly, the Board appears to be employing the same opaque and potentially misguided approach that has, for the past 20 years, selected leaders who have created a juvenile justice system so dysfunctional that the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors called the system "broken."

They should know. In 2005, the Board commissioned an audit of the probation department by the venerable Child Welfare League of America. That study found a probation department, which, at its core, had no "clear and meaningful strategic goals." Many have observed that Los Angeles County relies on treatment models that are ineffectual and at worst, actually increase crime. It probably came as no surprise a year later when Los Angeles Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky announced what many juvenile advocates had known for a long time; that "the juvenile justice system is broken...in many cases we are doing more harm than good." And just last year, the U.S. Dept. of Justice published a stunning report documenting the probation department's complete and systematic failure to care for the children in its custody. The report was a wholesale condemnation of this county's juvenile probation department, which is charged with the care of tens of thousands of this county's most vulnerable children.

The larger tragedy is that we know what strategies work - we just don't use them. Not only have other jurisdictions developed approaches that are more effective at reducing key outcomes such as recidivism; but their methods are much cheaper. Missouri, for example, spends half as much as California per youth, and experiences a fraction of the recidivism rate. Other jurisdictions have followed Missouri's lead, including: Washington D.C., Louisiana, Santa Clara County and most recently, San Francisco. Miami-Dade County also has adopted a dramatically new approach to juvenile justice. Research shows that the vast majority of juvenile offenders commit low level, non-violent misdemeanors and felonies. Recognizing this pattern, Miami-Dade County, with assistance from the federal government, developed an approach to delinquent youth that prevents these low level offenders from penetrating the juvenile justice system. That strategy has reduced their juvenile arrest rates by 78 percent since 2000.

So which way will we go? Once again, we have a choice in Los Angeles: will we select a leader who, like Chief Bratton, was able to change the culture of a vital part of our public safety system, or will we select a leader from the same mold as our former chiefs? Will our next leader have the effectiveness and political will to make both major and incremental changes in our system, or will the board select a leader who lacks the vision and the discipline to prevent our past missteps? Will our most vulnerable children be placed in a position to succeed, or will they be subjected to conditions and programming which, according to the board, renders them worse than when they arrived? The people of Los Angeles deserve a system that preserves public safety while treating its children effectively and humanely. This time around, we have to get this right.

Cyn Yamashiro is a clinical professor of law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles and Jo Kaplan and Larry Feldman Executive Clinical Director of its Center for Juvenile Law & Policy. He is a former deputy public defender in the L.A. County Public Defender’s office. He can be reached at cyn.yamashiro@lls.edu.