Pubdate: Fri, 4 Jul 2008
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: A - 1, Front Page
Copyright: 2008 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Gavin+Newsom
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/juvenile
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

S.F. JUVENILE HALL BRACES FOR DETAINEE SURGE

The population of San Francisco's juvenile hall is likely to spike 
now that the city has reversed its policy of shielding juvenile 
illegal immigrants convicted of felonies from federal immigration 
officials, city officials said Thursday.

And the undocumented youths are likely to see the length of their 
stays in detention increase dramatically as the juvenile probation 
department faces fewer alternatives to locking them up. At least one 
city official warned that many of the teenagers could be detained for 
a year or more.

Controversy over the number of youths locked up at juvenile hall 
erupted last spring when children's advocates criticized Mayor Gavin 
Newsom and his handpicked Chief Probation Officer William Siffermann 
for allowing the number of incarcerated youths to rise to 156, a 30-year high.

That was more than the maximum capacity of 150 at the new Youth 
Guidance Center near Twin Peaks, and city officials promised during 
the facility's construction that the beds would never be filled. 
Siffermann was hired by Newsom in 2005 in large part because he had 
cut the size of the juvenile hall population in Chicago.

After the complaints, Newsom promptly ordered the number in San 
Francisco reduced and issued an executive order demanding reform in 
the city's juvenile justice system. The number of incarcerated youths 
immediately went down to 128. As of Thursday, it was at 119.

Reverse of Decrease Likely

Those numbers are likely to go back up now that the Juvenile 
Probation Department has run out of other ways to handle illegal 
immigrant youths picked up for felonies, Siffermann said Thursday in 
an interview with The Chronicle.

"We now have fewer options. We can't move them out," Siffermann said. 
"I anticipate the population of the hall will increase."

On Sunday The Chronicle revealed that San Francisco was shielding 
Honduran youths convicted of dealing crack cocaine from possible 
federal deportation as part of its policy to be a sanctuary city for 
undocumented immigrants. Since mid-2006, the city has spent $18,951 
to fly them back home.

After federal law enforcement authorities demanded that the flights 
be stopped, the city instead sent the youths to long-term 
rehabilitation centers in Southern California, where eight of them ran away.

Newsom said Wednesday that the city would stop the practice and would 
promptly hand over any illegal immigrants convicted of felonies, 
regardless of age.

"We are committed to not returning any youth to their countries of 
origin, and we are committed to not placing any more of the 
undocumented youth in out-of-home placement," Siffermann said, noting 
that most of them have no parents in this country to return to.

On Thursday, 22 undocumented youths were at the hall - nearly a fifth 
of the total population there. Siffermann met for an hour Thursday 
morning with officials from the U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement office to develop protocols for how the city will deal 
with undocumented youths in the future. That includes deciding when 
immigration officials will be told that the city has detained a 
juvenile felon, said Nathan Ballard, press secretary for Newsom.

Ballard said the policy of shielding undocumented youths was not 
connected to the city's efforts to lower the number of youths at juvenile hall.

"We have halted the practice of putting undocumented immigrants on 
planes, and now we have to deal with reality," Ballard said. "It's 
still a priority to get juveniles who deserve treatment into 
appropriate rehabilitation instead of languishing at juvenile hall."

In San Francisco, alternatives to locking them up include home 
detention with electronic ankle monitors, a stay at a group home, 
mandatory check-ins at four city-funded nonprofit centers that are 
open from 3 to 9 p.m. daily, and participation in community programs 
that offer mentors and counseling.

National research shows that finding alternatives to incarceration 
and stressing rehabilitation lowers the likelihood youths will commit 
more crimes, improves chances they'll stay in school and saves tax dollars.

But none of those options appear viable for illegal immigrant youths 
charged with felonies in San Francisco. Omar Khalif, the ombudsman 
for the Juvenile Probation Department, said more and more illegal 
immigrants have been held at the hall - and the numbers will keep 
climbing despite the pressure to get them down.

'A Catch-22'

"The numbers are going to go up - they almost have to when you've got 
hard-to-place kids," Khalif said. "It's going to be a catch-22 no 
matter how you shape it."

Public defender Jeff Adachi said he expects to see the numbers "rise 
exponentially." He also said illegal immigrants are likely to see 
their stays increase dramatically because they will be held from the 
time of arrest to the time of their sentence, and then if found 
guilty, until ICE officials take them away and detain them longer in 
federal facilities before deportation. He said youth could be 
detained a year or longer in total.

Barry Krisberg is the president of the National Council on Crime and 
Delinquency, a criminal justice research and policy organization in 
Oakland. He said that if the political will is there, alternatives 
can still be found. He said there are government-approved placement 
centers, including one in Pleasanton, where San Francisco could send 
undocumented teenagers.

"The problem can be solved, and the idea that somehow this is going 
to inevitably lead to an overcrowded juvenile hall is just simply 
factually incorrect," he said.

Ana Perez, director of the Central American Resource Center in the 
Mission District, which works with immigrant families, said city 
officials seem to be missing the point. Why, she asked, are youths 
from Honduras leaving their countries and families behind to come to 
San Francisco to deal crack?

"I'm worried that we haven't done enough to figure out who these kids 
are, why they're coming, whether they've been victims of crimes in 
their home countries or here," she said. "They're criminals, but 
they're also children."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake