PERSONS OF INTEREST
Searching for LA County’s Next Probation Chief
by Jeremy Loudenback
LA COUNTY ADVOCATES EYE REFORMERS FOR PROBATION TOP SPOT
The Los Angeles County Probation Department has cycled through five probation chiefs in just over a decade. This time, juvenile justice advocates hope the county will attract someone with the desire, experience and aptitude to oversee the reform of the nation’s largest juvenile-justice system, as well as the state’s largest adult probation program.
“[Candidates] need to hear why this is a potentially exciting time in juvenile-justice reform in the county,” said Children’s Defense Fund-California Executive Director Alex Johnson. “This board has been moving in a progressive, reform-minded manner. If that message is conveyed, about why this is such a good opportunity, I think it will help start to pull in some people who would otherwise take a pass or who might be on the fence.”
The department has been shaken by one scandal after the other in recent years. In December, former Los Angeles County Chief Probation Officer Jerry Powers resigned after he was accused of improperly promoting his mistress. In 2008, the Department of Justice placed the county’s juvenile camps under federal oversight after horrific reports of the mistreatment of youth by staff members along with commonplace assaults and other violence. L.A. County officials also settled a major class-action federal lawsuit brought in 2010 over educational failures and “Dickensian” conditions at the six Challenger Camps.
Then there was the release of a December audit showing that the department has hoarded $22 million in funds earmarked for community-based programs, among other questionable fiscal actions. The audit, in turn, prompted the Board of Supervisors to vote to explore the creation of a permanent Probation Oversight Commission last week.
Now, instead of business as usual in the long scandal-plagued department, advocates are hoping the next chief has a working knowledge of trauma, mental health and youth rehabilitation and development.
“Often, many of these kids [in the juvenile-justice system] come from very dysfunctional backgrounds with a lot of toxic stress, and they’ve had all sorts of serious psychiatric issues,” said Jacqueline Caster, who serves on the Los Angeles County Probation Commission. “If you don’t understand that and come from that angle, it’s going to be a disaster. Most people in probation don’t have that background.”
Supervisor Sheila Kuehl says that the board has revised the job posting for the incoming probation chief to reinforce the county’s interest in a new approach for its juvenile-justice system.
“When the human resources team first developed the outreach brochure for the new probation chief, it didn’t really talk about restorative justice, it didn’t really talk about second chances. So we rewrote it,” Kuehl said. “The brochure that eventually went out made it clear that anyone applying for probation chief should understand— and hopefully embrace— these approaches.”
Overseeing the probation department in Los Angeles is also a job that requires administrative experience. The department supervises 46,000 adults and more than 7,800 juvenile offenders, including 1,400 in its 14 juvenile camps and three juvenile halls. It employs nearly 7,000 people, with a budget of about $860 million.
“Running L.A.’s probation department is like running an agency in a mid-size state,” said Shay Bilchik, director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University. “It has to be someone who is committed to being on the west coast and willing to follow through on reform and not just for a couple years.”
Following is a look at some of the most mentioned candidates for the job, based on conversations with officials and advocates close to the hiring process.
OUT OF STATE
A prominent name high on the lists of many advocates is Vincent Schiraldi. Before stepping away to head a criminal justice think tank at Harvard, he was director of juvenile corrections in Washington, D.C., and commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation. After turning around D.C.’s troubled juvenile-justice agency, Schiraldi has been an influential voice for community-based alternatives to juvenile incarceration that emphasize positive youth development and keeping juveniles close to home.
But like other high-profile national names who have entered the conversation—such as the Justice Policy Institute’s Marc Schindler and Wayne Mackenzie from the New York City Department of Probation—it is unclear if East Coaster Schiraldi would consider coming west.
Candice Jones, director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, is another reform-minded possibility for Los Angeles County, though she was only recently appointed to her current position. One advocate described her as the “leading reformer in the country” for her efforts to support rehabilitation and policy changes to sentencing.
IN-STATE
Among the in-state candidates, the name most frequently cited is Sheila Mitchell, the former probation chief in Santa Clara County, and Deputy Chief of Probation in Alameda County before she took the Santa Clara job. Mitchell resigned in 2013, but her nearly decade-long stint there was marked by a decrease in the number of youth incarcerated in the county and use of positive youth justice-informed services offered at the county’s facilities, including the much-praised William F. James Ranch. Mitchell is now heading the Namaste Leadership Institute in North Carolina, but some wonder if she could be lured back to California. Recently, Mitchell has provided technical assistance to Los Angeles County as part of ongoing efforts to create an innovative new facility on the site of the old Camp Vernon Kilpatrick, using the “L.A. Model,” which is partly based on her efforts to adapt the Missouri Model in Santa Clara County. The Missouri Model is a therapeutic approach to rehabilitation in juvenile detention that favors smaller-sized facilities in community settings.
David" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> Muhammad, who has helped direct juvenile-justice reforms in New York City and Washington, D.C. with Schiraldi before heading the probation department in Alameda County, threw his hat in the ring the day after Powers resigned when the Los Angeles Times called to gauge his interest in the position.
“I have close friends and family who think I am crazy to consider it,” Muhammad said. “But this position is so important, [and] I am crazy enough to think I could pull it off.”
Now a partner at the Oakland-based nonprofit Impact Justice, Muhammad earned plaudits from a wide number of advocates for his efforts to provide Alameda County with increased alternatives to juvenile incarceration. But his tenure there was also clouded by sexual harassment allegations. Alameda County investigators found the allegations to be “unsubstantiated,” yet even the suggestion of impropriety may knock him out of the running, say insiders.
“Maybe if Jerry [Powers] hadn’t gone out like he did, David would be our person for sure,” said a source close to the hiring process who declined to go on the record.
Another potential candidate is Sacramento County Chief Probation Officer Lee Seale. Since heading to Sacramento in 2013, Seale has been touted for his ability to work well with unions and the introduction of rehabilitative programs at juvenile halls. Under his watch, the probation department has reduced the use and duration of solitary confinement and has explored alternatives to incarceration, especially for low-level offenders.
LOS ANGELES
In Los Angeles County, a pair of senior probation employees has been mentioned in conversations, though neither of the two appear to fit the mold of reform that many advocates are hoping for.
Assistant Probation Chief Margarita Perez is said to enjoy support from probation rank-and-file and has been working closely with current Interim Chief Cal Remington. But critics say that, while Perez has reformist leanings on the adult side of probation, her experience with juveniles is nearly non-existent. In addition, the fact that she was brought to the agency by the recently departed Powers, might unfairly tarnish her, at least for now.
Felicia Cotton, deputy chief for juvenile institutions in Los Angeles County, is intimately familiar with the county’s probation system, and is credited with having helped bring its probation camps into DOJ compliance. (The county exited six years of special federal oversight in April 2015.) Yet, reform advocates note that a more recent county audit of progress in the camps—or lack thereof—has found the county “out of compliance,” on many of the very issues that the agency supposedly corrected when the feds were still in residence.
Johnson, a longtime observer of juvenile-justice issues in Los Angeles County, received some mention as the type of reform-minded leader in Los Angeles who might be able to navigate the county’s politics. But the former education and public safety deputy for Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas says he has no interest in the position.
“I’m flattered, but I think there are other folks who are far better suited to lead the department,” Johnson said. “I view my role as being an external partner and thought leader for the department and that’s the role that I see myself playing best.”
Jeremy Loudenback is the Child Trauma Editor for the Chronicle of Social Change
Loudenback’s story was adapted from an article originally produced for The Chronicle of Social Change.
Candidates pictured in photo, clockwise from top left: Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice Director Candice Jones, Sacramento County Chief Probation Officer Lee Seale, Sheila Mitchell, Vincent Schiraldi, David Muhammad and Los Angeles County Assistant Probation Chief Margarita Perez.