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Yeah, yeah. Mhm, Mhm. Good evening, everybody. I'm Johnny Barnes. Selvin San Francisco's Juvenile Hall has been the subject of many studies. In fact, the first one was called for just one year after the facility opened. One things that make

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San Francisco's Juvenile hall unique and I'm quoting from one of the last studies done is that few probation departments have been subject to as many accusations as has this one, nor formal studies and inquiries. Because of all of those accusations, a management audit has been called

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for, and it was completed in December of 1983. Tonight we're going to take a look at that management audit. It's called the Reid Report. San Francisco has to juvenile detention facilities Log Cabin, Red School for Boys in La Honda and this huge, labyrinthine building in San

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Francisco. The Youth Guidance Center. Built in 1950 this building is now said to have been outmoded the day it opened. This is the breed Report 75 pages of analysis of the management of the Juvenile hall. It looks behind this most recent list of allegations of child

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abuse at Juvenile Hall and at those charged with detaining Children in a safe home like environment. San Franciscan Jean Jacobs, president and founder of Coleman Children and Youth Services, is a nationally recognized advocate of Children's rights. Why has San Francisco's Juvenile Hall been studied so much?

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I think so many studies have been done because every so often, uh, there is a major flap, UH, some scandal involving an employee and or a child. And what has happened to a particular child? The Superior Court of San Francisco runs Juvenile Hall to Superior Court.

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Judges are assigned to the Youth Guidance Center. Judge Maxine Chesney handles delinquency cases. Judge Daniel Hanlon is the presiding juvenile court judge and the chief administrator of the Youth Guidance Center. Because of the recent allegations of abuse at Juvenile Hall, Judge Hamlyn ordered that a management

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ought to be done. In other words, Judge Hamlyn is the boss. The only problem with that is the presiding judges change with fair frequency. Judge Hammond's been in charge here for about a year. Is it true that this traditionally was not the favorite position for a

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Superior Court judge to be assigned to? Well, I I think it was looked upon as you're going out there by many of our colleagues. Um, I think that's a fair summary, that it was not a favorite assignment. How do you feel about the assignment? I enjoy

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the assignment. I spent 10 years in the criminal division and felt that if there's any hope of rehabilitation, it's during the period of time that you're set as a juvenile judge. Joseph Vodka has been the chief probation officer for 15 years. Judge Hamlyn is his boss

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because he and the judge are both charged with administration. Historically, there's been confusion as to where the judges, administrative duties end and the chief probation officers powers begin. Warren Kane, the assistant chief probation officer, has been in juvenile probation in San Francisco for 37 years. Bob

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Foot, superintendent of the juvenile Hall, has been there for 31 years, both foot and cane or civil service under vodka. The Breed report was critical of Mr Vodkas leadership ability. Do the assistant chief probation officer and the juvenile hall superintendent run independent kingdoms, or do you

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really have control over what they're doing? I'm in very close contact with both of my division heads There. They do not run their own Kingdom at all. I thought that was a very incorrect criticism. Do you have the power to fire the assistant chief probation officer

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or the superintendent of the Juvenile Hall? I can only recommend it to civil service. And I would have to show very specific action items of their election of duty for doing that. The way our civil service system is set up, one doesn't fire someone for not

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doing something is generally if you do something very wrong, do you feel that the structure that you have to work within is fair to you? Does it give you enough power? You are hired by the Superior Court judges and they can fire you if they're not

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pleased with your performance. Yet you are to supervise people who are protected by civil service codes. Johnny, I've never had the protection of civil service because in my professional training and capacity, I have felt that if I can't do the job, I should be fired in

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1969. Uh, Mr. Barker came in as a result of a study of a study and a great deal of scandal. Yes, Prior to that, for one year, Mr Vodka was able to make some remarkable and dramatic changes. The population dropped from over 400 to under 200

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within a year. But then a more permanent judge was appointed who stayed for many years, And Mr Baca's, uh, authority was then undercut and undermined. Often we come to this court, not. Administrators are not wishing to be administrators that we wish to spend the majority of

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our time doing the court work and not perhaps dividing and prioritizing our time between the court work and the administrative time that you must give the job as chief juvenile judge. And because of that, you administrative decisions are thrust upon the court. And perhaps at times,

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the easiest and most direct manner of doing that was engaged in, as opposed to really analyzing how you have most and best effect administrative policies at juvenile court. So the judge might, instead of going, if there was something wrong at Juvenile Hall, the judge might go

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to the superintendent of the Juvenile Hall rather than to the chief probation officer with the problem. That's correct. Or he might go to something's wrong with probation. He might go to the assistant probation chief probation officer, or even the head of the division, or even to

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the head of the division circumventing any decision making by the chief probation officer. That's what's been done to change all that. Well, first of all, we developed, along with the cooperation of the Juvenile Justice Commission and the bar association, the roles and responsibilities. Uh, if you

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were a job description for the chief juvenile probation officer there for their a problem, we have a standard by which to measure his his performance and also a standard by which he knows what is expected of him. The authors of The Breed Report, Allen Breed and

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Robert Smith are nationally and internationally recognized experts on juvenile and adult detention. I don't think that there's any question that the chief probation officer has the power that's needed to carry out his executive responsibilities. I think the void is that historically that leadership has not been

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exerted and that the power that has been there has not been utilized the optimum level that it should have been you are very critical in your report of the administration, for lack of written policy and for generally poor communication to staff. How many staff members. Did

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you speak with? I would suspect that over the course of the 30 days we were there, two thirds of the staff were interviewed. Important factor, though, is that the administration all of the members of the administration were interviewed. The chief probation officer, assistant chief probation officer,

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superintendent, Juvenile Hall and all of the senior counseling staff and supervising counseling staff for the juvenile hall itself. And the key, I think that I want to stress here the issue that we raised with regards to a policy manual was not to create a paper flutter.

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A paper document was to raise the question of Are there clear visions and the part of the people who run the juvenile hall and run the administration of What is there about? Do they communicate that to their staff? What we found is that there was no

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manual, but there also is not even any clear statements purpose of mission of relationships. Somebody and I would say it would be. The chief probation officer has to begin to make some decisions about what that agency in that department stands for to communicate that so that

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staff can relate to it. There has to be a very clear idea on the part of staff. Staff cannot formulate what the values of the mission, the objectives, goals B they can participate. But leadership has to begin to give some direction and purpose. The insinuation was

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that without an overall administrative manual, the rest of my rest of my divisions didn't know what they were to do. The insinuation apparently came from lengthy interviews with staff, so the insinuations aren't really insinuation. This is accumulation of information from staff. Well, had had the author

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of the report checked with administration or with appropriate people on staff, they may have realized that we have a manual for probation services. We have a manual for detention services. We have a manual for Log Cabin Ranch. Obvious, however, is you have the manual and the

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staff is not aware of it. That is a problem that we have used as a constructive criticism. Actually, the manual is available to all supervisory staff, and I would say that that's one of the positive aspects of the breed report. When an outsider comes in and

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where administration assumes that the information has been permitted through staff, we get to our middle managers and say, Let's get that administrative manual disseminated So that staff do know that we have and what the rules and policies are. There has been a climate of paranoia in

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which the juvenile hall staff have had to operate over the years. There's been one accusation, one allegation after another, any number of investigations that have been made so that staff feel that they aren't trusted, that they've been accused of abusing Children mistreating Children. And we found

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none of that. And there really has to be on aura of trust developed where administration not only sets policy but expresses to the staff, and it has confidence in them that they're doing a good job. MM, mhm. Go

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to your room and Kay says no and then goes, Go to your room, Castle it and Case says no counselors. I'll give you one more chance to go. A little kid says No. I've seen the counselor ground by his arm, you know, and the kid was,

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like, kind of scared and throw me in the room and the kids started banging Councilor, grabbed him again and put them in the took him out and put them in the icebox. The icebox. A cold room. It's a cold room. Cold room. Yeah. So if you

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could ask for anything here, what would it be for each stage? You're only here so far. 13 days is the longest day. You can, as I guess. More time outside or something at least, even if it would be fenced in or something Just some time outside,

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even if it would be. I'm sorry. In a fenced in area so you don't mind being fenced in if you can be outside, right? I mean, you have something to look at, but at least you can be out for fresh air. You're You're lucky if he

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even smells. What kind of impression has been made on you in 60 days? Well, very good one. So far, I've learned to We'll take discipline myself. Because now, D W, which is detainee of the Week, Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays. They get to stay up late, they

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get to work all crew, and unless it mean to work on crew, we'll conclude the setup for the for dinner, breakfast and lunch. It gives you something to do. I'm going to be in your room. touring the juvenile hall, you'll notice kids watching television in the

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receiving unit. You'll see toilet arrangements that are different from home and Arts and Crafts room in each unit that doesn't get much use and a tennis court that's never used by detainees. Each unit, from the receiving unit to be five the unit for violent offenders has

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a recreation area like this one. They're almost never used because of concern for security. All those who showed the outdoor play areas explained that kids could and would escape if allowed to play outside. Here in the girls' gym. While one councillor watches the game, the other

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watches the door. Because many staff members park just outside this door and enter the facility through this door. They say the girls' gym is a great place to escape from. The fence has seen better days and worse ones, but it doesn't keep a determined youth from

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escaping, and one counselor even worried about kids breaking in to free their friends standpoint. Of the overall operation of the program, there's an on do concern over security, even recognizing that that should be a secure facility on do in that every decision regarding program is tied

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up in terms of custody security rather than in the needs of the Children that are being detained. But even while there's this undue concern, there's gross irregularities in terms of good security practices. And escape is relatively simple matter from that juvenile hall and the Bob Weir

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and the fences hardly slow a child down. So what is meant is that Children aren't allowed outside because this way they can hold their escapes down. Programs aren't carried out because the programs might cause escape episodes. The entire institution operation is one of being concerned about

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custody and not being concerned about Children. What did you think of the management audit that took place here? A while back, the breed reports. The breed reports had a very good recommendation for more staff in San Frisco Juvenile Hall. I felt it was a good recommendation

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because with more staff assigned to work with the youths, we could do a better job with individual counseling. We'd have less time to supervise and take care of security precautions and more time to counsel the kids and get to know them on a 1 to 1

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basis. Do you feel that the staff is overly concerned with questions of security. Yes, I agree with that. And the only way to ameliorate that is by having more staff so we can have a little more flexibility. Bob Foot, superintendent of San Francisco's Juvenile Hall. The

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only objection that I have to the breed report is that both Mr Breed and Mr Smith, our experience in long term care institutions that are former employees of the youth authority and some of the some of their observations might have been more appropriate for long term

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care facilities on short term care facility. I've had personal responsibility for operating administrating all levels of security programs, both for Children and adults. The recommendations that we made, however, were in view of allowing a greater degree of responsibility, a greater degree of involvement of both Children

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and staff and constructive program outlets. It was not in terms of the artificial security that exists there now of keeping Children locked up tighter inside than death row. Prisoners at San Quentin Prison are, according to the breed report, and I'm quoting the temporary hiring practices of

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the county and the juvenile hall procedures, along with poor police clearance made it possible for unqualified people with criminal histories to go to work before their records had been cleared at the state and national level. This practice is unacceptable in any other jurisdiction and should not

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be tolerated in San Francisco. Would you comment on that, please? A counselor was hired. That is true. And this counselor was a registered sex offender. I am told he was a registered sex offender. Yes. How long did it take for that to come to your attention?

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How long was that person working directly with juveniles? He was working directly with juveniles on on a temporary basis, probably for several weeks, until we learned about it until I learned about it, and immediately we took action on that. Then there was the other problem. Employee.

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I asked Bob Foot about a woman hired as a counselor who allegedly had sexual relations with one of the kids she was in charge of. I of course, I recall this these allegations and this was an employee that was working here on an as needed basis.

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She had been fully screened. There's no indication in her background that there was anything different about her than that would lead us to believe that such things could develop. She had an excellent education and did make contact with this young boy when he was living in

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her living unit. The the allegations of wrongdoing did not occur when she was on duty and did not occur on site since Since this time it's my understanding that there has been a plea on her part of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and she

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has been placed on probation for three years now. My division heads no that before they recommend that a staff person should be hired. I personally will now clear the police record and see the police clearance record of every individual rehire. Uh huh, yeah, this

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is not a treatment center or a school. It's a holding pen until society decides what to do and where they want these kids to go. And so, but we've got to give them humane treatment while they're there. Libidinal Beam is a member of San Francisco's Board

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of Education and the Community Advisory Committee for Forensic Psychiatric Services. She likes Smith, and Breed is concerned with psychiatric screening of Children at Juvenile Hall. We have kids up there who are in need of mental of psychiatric hospitalization. Very often they don't get it in time

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for it to do them any good. Or if they got hospitalized, they're sent back to I G C. After a short period of time, then they get worse again and then they have to go back and we call it a revolving door. The whole juvenile Hall

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budget of all services over $10 million for the detention facility. It's a little over $3 million the mental health pieces about a quarter of a million dollars. So we're not talking about money. We're talking about the way the money is used. I really see it as

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a management problem, a program direction, because I think that if we had the kind of management direction that we'd like to see, people could begin to relate and work differently. They work together in behalf of the youngster, not separately, according to this report. And I'm quoting

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there is an absence of written policies or procedures that staff of the juvenile hall can follow when admitting a child suspected of being emotionally upset in dealing with a disturbed child on a unit and an established authority to see that needed services are provided in a

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timely fashion. That criticism has has some validity in terms of a need for better dissemination of the policy. I think it's unfair in its generalization to indicate that staff don't know what to do with disturbed Children. We've been handling disturbed Children for as long as this

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place has been open. Warren Kane is in charge of screening for admissions. If he has obvious mental problems, it's usually failure. Recognisable if he even suspects that the child is suicidal, is a child is unbalanced. A visa is severely retarded, etcetera. We do have nurses here

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around the clock and the nurses called. We do have psychological services. They can be called. We are not afforded the luxury of 24 hours a day to have a psychiatrist greeting kids as they come in here, and I don't really think it's necessary Anyway. There are

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various criteria. There are various standards. It can be used for the type of screening. The concern, though, came out of some role playing that was done with staff during the course of it, where we gave them an extreme situation and ask them what they would do

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and beyond being able to call on the psychiatric teams that were available through the mental health service. They were then unable to go to the next steps of who, in the absence of the superintendent, in the absence of the chief probation officer, had the authority to

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authorize the transfer of a young person to a hospital if they deemed the behavior to warrant such a transfer. And it was again, simply one of the illustrations that we used to point out. A lack of guidance, lack of direction, a clear lack of clear statement

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of authority about who does what under what circumstances. We are now developing a in each cottage, a team approach to evaluations after admission. Is this new, or how long has this policy been? Well, we're implementing it. It came out of the breed report. It was actually

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something we've been thinking about. I've been thinking about along and sharing with some people on the Juvenile Justice Commission and and the medical staff prior to it coming out. But they helped focus it. Smith and Breed recommended hiring additional staff that there are 1000 different ways

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that staff could be used. One of the most important ways that was mentioned earlier by Alan is to not have just one person on duty and the units at night, so that if one person has to close down the unit, kids are behind locked doors without

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a physically alive human being in there with them to protect them from fire from suicides, et cetera. Which raises some very, very serious questions about responsibility of the county. If something did happen to a young person who was locked up without supervision, what it does mean

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knows you have to back up people who could be a security force. It could be a an emergency. Forces be two or three people added, doesn't mean each one of the units has to have a person, but there would be two or three people would back

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up on the unit's if they let a youngster out to go to the bathroom. They have to wait for the council to come from the adjacent unit. The adjacent unit is not being watched at that point. You're absolutely right. It would sound like we've been awfully

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lucky, doesn't it? And part of it has to be lucky Johnny. I can't tell you why things haven't been done before. This is not not within my province to make these types of decisions. Children's rights in San Francisco are not high on anybody's told him. Pole,

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um, Children don't vote. The Children involved are the Children of the poor and the minorities. Very often, the parents of those Children don't vote. They don't know what their rights are, and they don't know how to go about Ameliorating or correcting what they see as injustices

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in their lives or the lives of their Children. What do you think it's going to happen to the problems that are that exist here because of low staffing, inadequate staffing? Well, I'm sincerely hopeful that our request to the Board of Supervisors to increase that staffing will

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be granted What has been the impact of the breed report? The impact has been able to help us focus our attention to perhaps to focus our attention on those areas that we felt were weak. But we really hadn't gotten down to because of the prioritization of

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other matters in our lives. The court has passed a resolution and send it to the Board of Supervisors requesting a new facility. I don't know. We'll get that. But if not, we need substantial physical improvements in our plant. And that does go to security. And it

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does go to humaneness for the kids. I think San Francisco County Juvenile Hall has been studied to death. My hope out of this report would be that it is the final study for some time to come. I would hope that some of the ideas that was

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suggested by Mr Smith and myself can be used as the framework within which programs can be improved. But far more important is that the leadership, the staff themselves develop the kinds of policy that San Francisco County wants for the operation of its programs and that together

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within that policy, and they develop the necessary programs and procedures. It's that hope that we wrote the report. Mhm. Yeah, yeah. Mm, yeah.