California Auditor: Data Hinders Effectiveness of Juvenile “Realignment”

It’s the rare public policy that succeeds in spite of bureaucratic incompetence and a lack of vision. But, according to a recent state audit, California’s decision in 2007 to transfer the supervision of all nonviolent juvenile offenders from the state’s Department of Corrections (CDOC) to county-level criminal justice agencies might be one of those lucky-rather-than-good efforts.

When California's Legislature enacted what's referred to as "juvenile justice realignment" five years ago, it approved funding, known as the Youthful Offender Block Grant (YOBG), to compensate counties for taking on the costs of incarceration, probation and programming for juveniles. The Board of State and Community Corrections was then put in charge of monitoring how counties spent the total $90-million YOBG budget each year and issuing annual reports on the outcomes of realignment.

California's Bureau of State Audits, however, in a September 2012 report to the Legislature, said the board's reports "are based on a flawed methodology," and that because lawmakers never established specific objectives, "the limited information that is currently available regarding the outcomes of realignment can be misleading."

"Without clear goals, measuring whether realignment has been successful is challenging," State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote to California lawmakers. "The board's reports could mislead decision makers about the effectiveness of realignment by making it appear that realignment has not been effective when this may not be the case."

Rather than relying on the board's reports, auditors visited four counties in California - Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Yuba - and analyzed data from the state's Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical System (JCPSS). According to the audit, the chief probation officers in all four of those counties believe that realignment has been effective in reducing juvenile crime and preventing non-violent juvenile offenders from exacerbating their behavior and committing more serious, violent crimes. And the JCPSS data, though flawed itself, according to auditors, appears to validate those beliefs.

The number of juvenile offenders who were committed to probation or incarceration might have been reduced by more than 21% from FY2008 to FY2011, auditors reported. Additionally, expenditures by the Juvenile Justice division of CDOC in FY2011 were $294 million, a reduction of close to $200 million from FY2007, the year before realignment was enacted.

"Although these indicators are encouraging, the limited—and potentially misleading—juvenile justice data that are currently available prevented us from providing a meaningful assessment of realignment outcomes," the audit report said.

Specifically, auditors say, the board's reports focus almost exclusively on the counties' use of YOBG funds. The problem with this, they argue, is that "outcomes for juvenile offenders cannot always be directly correlated to the block grant," because counties might use a number a different sources of funding for juvenile justice and for different priorities.

Sacramento and Yuba counties reported to the board that their YOBG funds were spent on "nearly all types of juvenile offenders." In Sacramento County, just 6% of juvenile offenders who received YOBG services in FY2011 were convicted of new felonies in adult court, compared to 14% of juvenile offenders who didn't receive YOBG services, suggesting that increased YOBG funding could work to reduce juvenile recidivism in Sacramento.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, also reported that just 6% of juvenile offenders who received YOBG services were convicted of new felonies in adult court, compared to only 1% of juvenile offenders who didn't receive YOBG services, suggesting that realignment has had an adverse effect in L.A. on juvenile recidivism rates. But, auditors explained, the results there coincide with L.A, and San Diego counties' YOBG funds exclusively spent on high-risk youth offenders.

"It is reasonable to assume," the audit report said, "that criminal justice outcomes for juvenile offenders within counties that spend (YOBG) funds only on high-risk offenders would be worse than outcomes in counties that spend (YOBG) funds on lower-risk offenders because high-risk offenders are more likely to be convicted of new offenses."

Auditors mostly blamed the Legislature for the board's "flawed methodology." The audit recommended that "the Legislature should consider revising state law to specify the intended goals of juvenile justice realignment," and that the realignment law should be amended "to require counties to collect and report countywide performance outcomes and expenditures related to juvenile justice as a condition of receiving (YOBG) funds."

The report also recommended that the juvenile justice data system needs to be upgraded to ensure accuracy. And the board, according to auditors, needs to "create policies and procedures that include clear, comprehensive guidance to counties about all aspects of outcome reporting," and verify county data by making regular site visits.

"Until the Legislature and the board take steps to refine the information collected from counties and to define the goals of realignment," the audit concluded, "any measurement of realignment outcomes is arbitrary and may not fully represent the impact realignment has had on juvenile offenders and the state as a whole,"

Source: California State Auditor. "Juvenile Justice Realignment: Limited Information Prevents a Meaningful Assessment of Realignment's Effectiveness," Report No. 2011-129, September 2012; www.auditor.ca.gov

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