Report 2019-116 Recommendation 10 Responses

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

Recommendation #10 To: Santa Barbara County Probation Department

To determine the effectiveness of its use of JJCPA funds, Santa Barbara 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.

6-Month Agency Response

The 2019-20 year-end report to the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) was submitted September 22, 2020. The Probation Department included trend analysis informed by locally available juvenile justice data, as well as analysis based on internal Department caseload data and risk and needs assessment.

For FY 2020-21, the Department included robust performance measures in the service contracts for each juvenile provider, which include a set of measures standardized across all programs, as well as a set of program-specific measures tailored to the services each provider is contracted to perform. This will provide more comprehensive enrollment and performance outcome data, and will allow the Department to provide stronger analysis over time of the nexus between funded programs and local juvenile justice trends, as well as recidivism rates for youth served specifically by these funds.

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

60-Day Agency Response

The 2019-20 year-end report to the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) will be due for submittal in October, 2020. The Probation Department will include trend analysis informed by locally available juvenile justice data, as well as analysis based on internal Department caseload data, risk and needs assessment, and recidivism information.

In FY 2019-20, the Department introduced very basic performance measures, to help providers understand the concepts of program evaluation and begin the transition to more comprehensive evaluation measures. In FY 2020-21, the Department has included robust performance measures in the service contracts for each juvenile provider, which include a set of measures standardized across all programs, as well as a set of program-specific measures tailored to the services each provider is contracted to perform. This will provide more comprehensive performance outcome data, and will allow the Department to provide stronger analysis over time of the nexus between funded programs and local juvenile justice trends.

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

All Recommendations in 2019-116

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.