2.

(ACTION) Review and approval of September 21, 2005 meeting minutes.

Action on minutes tabled till the next meeting.

(public comments)

none.

3.

Public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Program Committee of the Juvenile Probation Commission

  There were none.

4.

(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Continued discussion regarding probation officers’ safety in the field, with possible recommendations to the full commission. 

Rich Perino, Pres DPOA, recounted briefly that the last time the committee met, there was a very good discussion regarding this topic. He passed out another document that showed (not completely) how many Calif. jurisdictions have armed POs.

Gabe Calvillo, VP, DPOA, referred to an Examiner article reporting a federal indictment of several adult criminals, and identified many of them as youth who have been supervised in this Dept, all ‘shooters’.  M. Johnson recounted a home visit he did for G. Calvillo, where he was walked up on by an unknown person.  He said that it is a more dangerous environment now, with greater risks potential.

The idea was presented that there needs to be possibly another way of doing “business” with these intensive types, in conjunction with the SFPD. The current way isn’t working with them (sending kids with guns to group homes).

F. Collier also gave examples of kids with guns who receive no consequences for their offenses. P. Quadra echoed that it is not to protect themselves from their kids, rather to be better prepared for what might happen in the community.  V. Tong said that in alignment with the JDAI initiative, the Dept is releasing more kids who have gun offenses, back into the community. D. Fuata, Supervisor of the SOP unit, while conflicted about the issue, was in support of the unit and asked the committee to approve their request.

A. Nance, Asst. CPO, acknowledged the issue and the larger issue of public safety, not just for the POs, but the community, and how the community responds to the Dept’s activities is impacted by their perception of the POs. Preliminarily the community has voiced opposition to gun carrying POs. 

He said that the Dept’s policy/practices for the SOP unit needs to be revisited, and a balance struck between their supervision duties and officer safety.  He expressed the Dept’s support and concern for the POs’ safety and said they will be coming up with policies that will keep officers safe, while still maintaining the goals of the Dept in serving its youth.

There is the concern that having guns may escalate actions to gunplay, but it was brought out that in the 6 yrs adult probation has armed their POs, no incidents have occurred.

Comm Hale said that the Commission could not direct the Chief to implement such a policy.  They could after discussion find that it is reasonable for the SOP POs to be armed. It would be up to the Chief to negotiate how that would work.  We could be overridden by the Bd of Supervisors.

R. Perino asked the committee to help them (DPOA) go to the “powers that be” to gain support for this proposal. Comm Hale said he would speak with Pres Queen about that.

(public comments)

There were none.

5.

(DISCUSSION) District Based Planning and comments from the community regarding its use in deciding on services for youth.

The Chief noted that there were no public representatives present to make any comments.  He gave the Dept’s interpretation of their direction on district based planning, vis a vis using the process of the JJCC,  for laying out plans to accomplish it. Tomorrow’s meeting will give the community an idea of how the Dept plans to solicit their input on what their felt needs, and how to align the Dept’s activities to better serve the juvenile justice kids.  This will entail identification of the client population being served, primarily in treatment, and prevention of recidivism (and not merely pre-involved youth). He said in the next RFP process, CBOs will have to draw the relevance of their proposed service to the Dept’s goals and values (including balanced and restorative justice principles), and include an evaluative process. Another thing they will look for is the involvement of parents and youth in the development and oversight of the CBOs proposed services.  

Comm Hale was concerned about not having a centralized database of “evidence” from such evaluations (if CBOs had to be responsible for their own) that could allow the Dept to extract subsets of data for analysis purposes.

Comm Chuck said he hopes these comments get passed to the rest of the commission. The Chief asked for the commissioners to help in getting these comments relayed so that the Dept staff doesn’t face the need to come and report to committees and full commission (thus being redundant and adding to OT costs).

(public comments)

There were none.

6.

(DISCUSSION) Language Access Task Force, progress report on identified concerns and progress toward eliminating them.

Comm Chuck said that he had spoken to Liz Jackson-Simpson, Garry Bieringer, and a non profit rep who are working on the JDAI sub committee addressing this subject, and he is satisfied there is ongoing work being done to resolve it.

The Chief said that he discovered a problem in communication within the lines of authority, when line staff was not informed about the contents of the memo on language access.  This is being dealt with.

A. Nance commented that the issue of access also involves signage in the facility, old and new, and this is also on the radar.

(public comments)

There was none.

7.

(DISCUSSION) Public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Program Committee of the Juvenile Probation Commission

There was none.

8.

(ACTION) Announcements, future agenda items.  Adjournment

Comm Hale asked if there needs to be a revision of the Dept’s policy dealing with client contacts where a personal safety issue is at hand.  The Chief said that they are looking at the redefinition of the duties of the POs, and the goals of the Dept, vis a vis, roles of POs as peace officers and not police officers.

Comm Hale asked for a report on the FITS program.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:10pm.