Report Calls for New Juvenile Justice Complex

Faced with rising numbers of juvenile offenders and crumbling, overcrowded facilities, Ventura County needs to build a massive juvenile justice complex that would include courtrooms, detention facilities and other services.

That is the conclusion of a 24-page report commissioned by the Ventura County Probation Agency that will be released today. The Farbstein report--as it is known--is the most comprehensive the county has ever undertaken.

Judges and law enforcement officials hope this master plan will give them the leverage they need to compete for more than $177 million in available state and federal funds. The county must apply for those funds by March 17.

“From my standpoint, we didn’t need the report to tell us what we already knew--that we have a desperate need for juvenile beds, particularly at juvenile hall,” said Cal Remington, the Probation Agency chief. “But an important part of the process is to provide policymakers with the information they need to make the big decisions.”

Specifically, the report calls for all branches of the fragmented juvenile justice system to be brought together on a single 30-acre site, centrally located in the county. One site under consideration is county land at the Camarillo Airport.

Based on projections for juvenile populations through 2010, the report recommends a complex that would more than double the current 174 detention beds to 410, and triple the current two juvenile courtrooms to six.

The report also suggests that all agencies related to Juvenile Court--including the probation agency, the district attorney and the public defender--have offices in a building adjacent to the detention facility.

There is no price tag in the report, but Chief Deputy Probation Officer Karen Staples estimates it will cost $25 million just to build a new detention center, and $50 million to $60 million to construct the entire complex.

The county paid the San Luis Obispo-based consultant $60,000 to do the report, as well as an earlier needs assessment report released in March 1997. Farbstein also helped the county write a successful grant for the Oxnard Challenge Project--a $4.5-million program for troubled youth in south Oxnard.

The new report will go before the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Remington said, adding that he hopes a steering committee will be appointed to oversee the grant application for part of the $177 million.

If the county is serious about vying for the state funds it will have to move quickly and decisively, Remington said.

By the time it files its grant application with the state Board of Corrections, the county will have to select a 30-acre site, pledge to come up with 25% of the complex’s estimated cost and promise to staff it once it is completed.

Finally, the state will want Ventura County to complete the facility in three years, by 2002.

The state and federal funds can only be used to build the detention facility, but Remington said the county will probably have a better shot at receiving the grant money if it agrees to build the whole complex.

Remington stressed this may be the county’s only chance--there has never been so much money available for juvenile facilities, and there may never be again.

Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren and Remington know they face an uphill battle in convincing the supervisors to spend taxpayer dollars to build the recommended juvenile justice complex.

But they see no alternative.

“From my standpoint, the immediacy of the need is yesterday,” Perren said.

And he pointed out that the money to build the complex--as much as it cost to build the county government center more than a decade ago--is cheap if measured against long-term savings.

“Every dollar we spend today is 10 dollars we will not have to spend to warehouse a kid in the future, and a hundred you would have to pay to compensate the victim. If you can rehabilitate them, and get them to be productive members of society . . . the savings is phenomenal.”

Perren and law enforcement officials across Ventura County have said repeatedly that local facilities are so jampacked they cannot mete out proper punishments.

At the center of the problem is the county’s juvenile hall.

Built in 1965 to hold 84 delinquents, the facility has not been expanded since, though the county population has almost tripled. Today, as many as 140 youths are held at the facility at one time.

A 1997 inspection by the state Board of Corrections declared the facility “antiquated,” “inadequate” and “in need of replacement.” The board recommended that the county tear the building down.

“At every step we’ve had to adjust,” Remington said. “From the police to probation to courts having to adjust their decisions because of overcrowding.”

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Proposed Ventura County Juvenile Justice Center

Project: The county complex would includ 4410 detention beds, six juvenile courts and offices for related county services.

Location: The 467,390-square-foot complex woiuld be built at a centrally located site that has yet to be identified.

Deadline: The county must submit its application by March 17 for a share of $177 million in state and federal money set aside for juvenile juvenile facilities. The county must pay 25% of construction costs as well as staffing and operations.

Construction: Estimated %50 million to $60 million.