Juvenile Detention in San Francisco: Analysis and Trends 2006

The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice

When a San Francisco youth comes into contact with law enforcement, several important decisions are made to determine whether that child will be detained in the Youth Guidance Center (YGC) or sent home.  Detention following an arrest is supposed to serve the purpose of ensuring that a child attends future court dates or commits no further crime.  Over the past 20 years, San Francisco’s juvenile justice system has been the subject of repeated efforts to reduce its reliance on secure detention.  Despite the efforts of city officials and community-based agencies, the current YGC population is currently at record highs.  This report provides an analysis of recent juvenile detention trends in San Francisco.

Detention Process:

When youth are arrested for the commission of an offense, the intake process includes a detention screening.  A youth may be detained in a juvenile hall for various reasons.  The time period for detention before a court hearing alerting the youth to any charges must be no longer than 48 hours.  In that time, however, a decision will be made to keep the child in the juvenile hall or to send the child home.  That decision may be based on a risk assessment, or the subjective analysis of a probation officer.  A risk assessment will consider any previous referrals to the juvenile court, history of substance abuse, escapes from custody, past failures to appear and,  the seriousness of the offense.   Depending on the risk assessment score, juvenile probation will determine whether the child should be released or detained.  It may happen that probation will override the score for various reasons, choosing to detain the child despite a score indicating an appropriate release.  An override may also be based on a family’s wish to leave the child in the hall, or the fact that a child was arrested out of the county of his or her residence.

Should probation decide to detain the child, a hearing will be scheduled to allow the youth to appear before a judge.  The judge will then decide whether continued detention is required or if the child can be returned home on a promise to appear, possibly with other conditions as the judge sees fit.

Methodology:

CJCJ compiled data about the juvenile population vulnerable to detention in the Youth Guidance Center and the population detained there.  The data includes number of youth arrested by ethnicity over the last 15 years, the number of youth detained by ethnicity, over the last 15 years, and the rates for both.  In addition, CJCJ analyzed the average daily population by year over the last 20 years at the YGC, and the average length of stay for youth detained during that period.

Between 1992 and 2006, San Francisco’s juvenile population, aged 10-17, decreased from 59,089 to 48,331.   Despite this decrease, the raw number of referrals to juvenile court, juvenile arrests and detentions of some segments of the juvenile population has remained disproportionately high.

Juvenile Referrals:

In 2005, youth aged 10 through 17 numbered 48,664 in San Francisco County.  The overall rate of referral to the juvenile court in 2005, per a population of 100,000 was 6,191.4.  The rate of referrals for San Francisco juveniles has decreased by 31.6 percent since 1992.  Indeed, the rate of arrest has steadily declined since 1997.

African American juveniles together make up only 12% of that population, yet the rate of referral for these youth ranks highest among all segments of the juvenile population.  The referral rate for African American male juveniles is 42,110.8  per 100,000 San Francisco juveniles.  Although this rate includes potentially duplicated referrals (the same individual is arrested and referred to the juvenile court more than once in a year), a rate of 42,110.8 indicates that among a small population of only 2,852 individuals, approximately 40 percent has been arrested in the last year. 

The second highest rate of referral to juvenile court among the juvenile population in San Francisco occurs among African American girls.  That rate, 17,789.2 per 100,000, is up 35 percent since 1992.  These high rates considered along with the small portion of the population that African Americans represent in the total juvenile population indicate that a significant proportion of African American youth are exposed to the criminal justice system in San Francisco. 

This is not a new phenomenon.  Unfortunately, despite long-term awareness of this problem, little has changed.  As was stated above, the rate of referral for African American girls has increased since 1992, though the number of arrests has decreased since reaching a high in 2001.  The rate of referral to juvenile court for African American boys, on the other hand, decreased steadily between 1992 and 2004.  In 2005, the rate increased over the previous year.  The 2005 rate is down 19 percent since 1992, though the rate is still egregiously high.

Across both gender and racial divisions, the only increases in the rate of referral occurred among Latina youth and African American female juveniles.  Latina youth also represent the only segment of the youth population that has experienced a significant increase in population since 1992.  There are 8 percent more Latina youth in 2006 than in 1992.

The most significant reduction in referral rate was seen among the White and Asian male juvenile population, whose rates both decreased by more than 50 percent.  Referrals of White female juveniles also decreased by 49.6 percent. 

Juvenile Arrests:

The referral rate includes both arrests and non-law enforcement referrals to the juvenile court.  Because all youth referred to the juvenile court are potentially susceptible to detention, we focus on referral rates throughout this report.  It is important to recognize, however, that juvenile arrest rates in San Francisco are presently lower than they ever have been.  Thus, the overuse of detention as a response to decreasing juvenile crime becomes an issue that should lead local policymakers and criminal justice officers to reconsider their strategies and aim for more effective methods to work with the county’s youth.

The juvenile arrest rate in San Francisco is substantially lower than any time since numbers have been maintained.  When the arrest rates are considered by offense, only the rate for drug arrests was higher in 2005 than in 1975, although it remains much lower than it was throughout the late 1980s and 1990s.  Over the last decade, juvenile arrests for all offenses are down, with a single exception.  The arrest rate for weapon offenses has increased slightly since 1995.