Report 2019-116 Recommendation 6 Responses

Report 2019-116: Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act: Weak Oversight Has Hindered Its Meaningful Implementation (Release Date: May 2020)

Recommendation #6 To: Kern County Probation Department

To determine the effectiveness of its use of JJCPA funds, Kern should include in its year-end reports to Community Corrections descriptions or analyses of how its JJCPA-funded programs influenced its juvenile justice trends, as required by law.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2022

Effective July 1, 2020, juvenile units started completing Stat Sheets for Youth Re-entry (YRES), Youth Placement (YPS), and Youth Supervision (YMS). To fully implement this recommendation, these monthly unit stat workbooks were revised over the past two years to include expanded supervision statuses and revised definitions. In conjunction with a newly developed Juvenile Data Management (JDM) system, Probation can run reports and determine what programs youth are receiving, dates of service, length of service, type of service, dosage hours, service provider, and risk level. By improving our systems, Probation can now capture JJCPA-YOBG statistics to identify juvenile justice trends.

Samples of the three stat workbooks and the JDM report are submitted as part of this response. These reports have been redacted to exclude protected confidential information.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

We reviewed the year-end report that Kern submitted to Community Corrections in October 2022 and confirmed that it included descriptions or analyses of how the county's JJCPA-funded programs influenced its juvenile justice trends.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2021

Probation formed a committee across the juvenile divisions (Juvenile Services and Juvenile Programs) in conjunction with the Research, Analysis & Data (RAD) Unit to develop statistical forms that more effectively capture data to compare with county-wide trend data. Effective July 1, 2020, juvenile units started completing a General Unit Stat Sheet and a Placement Unit Stat Sheet. These forms include definitions to ensure reporting accuracy and provide the ability to identify trends that impact services including programs funded by JJCPA and YOBG. Staff have entered information from these stat sheets for the first year, July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021. Though the information has been entered into the newly developed Juvenile Data Management (JDM) system, the Probation Department is in the process of reviewing the data for accuracy and developing the necessary reports needed to fully implement this recommendation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Pending

1-Year Agency Response

Probation formed a committee across the juvenile divisions (Juvenile Services and Juvenile Programs) in conjunction with the Research, Analysis & Data (RAD) Unit to develop statistical forms that more effectively capture data to compare with county-wide trend data. Effective July 1, 2020, juvenile units now must complete a General Unit Stat Sheet and a Placement Unit Stat Sheet. These forms include definitions to ensure reporting accuracy and provide the ability to identify trends that impact services including programs funded by JJCPA and YOBG. By using these stat sheets, staff will be able to compare data year-over-year, impact on county-wide trends, and better aptly serve youth. The first complete year of using the stat sheets and entering the data will be included in the reports submitted October 1, 2021 when the year-end reports are due to Community Corrections, and each year thereafter.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Pending

6-Month Agency Response

Probation formed a committee across the juvenile divisions (Juvenile Services and Juvenile Programs) in conjunction with the Research, Analysis & Data (RAD) Unit to develop statistical forms that more effectively capture data to compare with county-wide trend data. Effective July 1, 2020, juvenile units now must complete a General Unit Stat Sheet and a Placement Unit Stat Sheet. These forms include definitions to ensure reporting accuracy and provide the ability to identify trends that impact services including programs funded by JJCPA and YOBG. By using these stat sheets, staff will be able to compare data year-over-year, impact on county-wide trends, and better aptly serve youth. The first complete year of using the stat sheets and entering the data will be included in the reports submitted October 1, 2021 when the year-end reports are due to Community Corrections, and each year thereafter.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

Probation formed a committee across the juvenile divisions (Juvenile Services and Juvenile Programs) in conjunction with the Research, Analysis & Data (RAD) Unit to develop statistical forms that more effectively capture data to compare with county-wide trend data. Effective July 1, 2020, juvenile units now must complete a General Unit Stat Sheet and a Placement Unit Stat Sheet (forms provided via email). These forms include definitions to ensure reporting accuracy and provide the ability to identify trends that impact services including programs funded by JJCPA and YOBG. By using these stat sheets, staff will be able to compare data year-over-year, impact on county-wide trends, and better aptly serve youth. Kern will include this information in its year-end reports due October 1st each year to Community Corrections.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2019-116

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.