[Solano County] Grand jury report: JDFC leaders working on past recommendations, needed security upgrades ongoing

However, administrators have ‘addressed most of the recommendations’ of past grand jury reports, the new document, issued May 28, reveals.

Following up on past reports, Solano County grand jurors recently visited the Juvenile Detention Facility and found its leaders continue to address recommendations in those reports and seek to complete the “institutional module” for tracking and security.

In the grand jury’s latest report on the facility, issued May 28, jurors noted the locked facility is a division of the Solano County Probation Department, but did not indicate that it also is one of four high schools operated by the Solano County Office of Education.

The Probation Department provides short-term residential placement and treatment for youth in the juvenile justice system. Juveniles arrested for lesser crimes are placed into diversion programs outside of the facility.

In the report, jurors said they were impressed with the facility’s personal development and motivational programs.

“They were polite and engaging while maintaining eye contact and shaking hands,” the report indicated of clients. “The encounter included a voluntary piano solo performed by one of the juveniles. In addition, the juveniles individually shared their learning experiences” with the grand jurors.

They compiled some numbers, too, that were revealing:

The facility has a maximum capacity of 138 juveniles who have been arrested for

felonies. During the jurors’ visit, only 43 youths were incarcerated.

During the 2018-19 fiscal year, 353 juveniles were processed; 282 young men

and 71 young women. Of those, 162 were black (46 percent), 94 Hispanic (27 percent) and 56 white (18 percent).

Staff-wise, there were 41 of 52 allocated group counselors, five of six allocated senior counselors and five of six allocated supervising group counselors.

One supervisor was on long-term medical leave and one supervisor applicant is in the

hiring process. In addition, there are four on-call temporary staff positions.

Grand jurors reported that the facility’s incoming juveniles receive an initial screening for both medical and mental health problems, are asked to provide their gender and pronoun preferences and are processed and housed in accord with facility protocols.

“This procedure seems to be in response to prior Grand Jury reports,” the May report indicated.

The county Department of Mental Health is notified when evaluations indicate assistance is required.

Facility staffers use a behavior management system which “enables the juveniles to earn points that may be redeemed for snacks or time in the incentive recreation room.”

When behavior requires “modification,” the juvenile is given a five-minute cool-down period, the jurors reported. If the behavior is “acceptable” at the end of the cool-down period, the juvenile is returned to regular activities.

However, when a youth requires further behavioral intervention, a “cognitive-based and staff-intensive” tool is implemented.

Volatile youths are placed into an interview room for a 30-minute cool-down period. If they have not cooled down, they are sent to room confinement for up to four hours and evaluated  every 30 minutes to evaluate their behavior.

“If they are still ‘hot’ after the four-hour confinement period, mental health counselors are brought in to provide support,” the grand jurors wrote in the new report.

The facility offers skill-development programs to benefit youths upon their release including construction trades, master gardener program, basic information technology and online high school and college courses.

As a locked facility, the juvenile detention facility requires an effective tracking and security system. It has been upgraded to video record all areas of the facility, but storage capacity of recordings is “not large enough to store one year’s worth of data,” grand jurors wrote.

A contract has been awarded to address entry and paging deficiencies and expand video file storage to record 18 months of activity.

A tracking and documentation system, the “institutional module” is a computer program

used to document, track and organize statistical information on incidents within the

facility. The 2012-13 grand jury report recommended the module be upgraded. That recommendation was reasserted by the 2016-17 grand jury report.

In 2019, the grand jurors were informed that the module is being “rolled out in phases,” but the project completion date of May 2020 has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vacaville Reporter
By Richard Bammer 
June 13, 2020