County to Set Up Anti-Crime Advisory Council : Panel: Multi-agency group will recommend programs to the Board of Supervisors and work to improve existing efforts.

In an attempt to more sharply focus and coordinate the county’s crime-fighting efforts, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to establish a multi-agency advisory council.

The Orange County Criminal Justice Coordination Council will replace the Legal-Judicial Systems Committee--made up of judges and court administrators--that has served in an advisory capacity to the Board of Supervisors.

With 29 members, the new council will include county leaders in education, probation, public health and others with a stake in preventing or responding to crime, including the president of the League of California Cities and a citizens’ advocate.

“The purpose is to try to help coordinate the entire criminal justice arena and not just the courts,” said David Kiff, executive assistant to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, who proposed expanding the Legal-Judicial Systems Committee he founded in 1977.

Ron Coley of the county administrative office said the new council, which is modeled after a similar organization in Los Angeles County, will recommend new anti-crime programs to the Board of Supervisors and work to increase the efficiency of existing programs by eliminating duplication and promoting greater interagency coordination.

Supervisor William G. Steiner, former director of Orangewood Children’s Home for abused and neglected children, will serve the first two-year term as chairman of the new council.

“The Board of Supervisors invests about half a billion dollars annually in public safety, and the council will provide an opportunity to make recommendations on the best use of these funds,” Steiner said.

Interagency coordination is vital, Steiner said, citing anti-gang activities as an example. “We have probably half a dozen programs to deal with gangs in Orange County and it is important that these efforts not be fragmented.”

He said the advisory council, which will meet quarterly beginning next month, will also recommend innovations. The council will immediately study the feasibility of creating a “drug court” in Orange County to deal exclusively with cases involving the illegal sale and use of drugs, Steiner said.

Because the proposal had been fully discussed over the past 18 months, Coley said, there was little discussion Tuesday about the proposal to form the multi-agency council, which will cost the county $236,000 annually, mostly in administrative salaries.

Coley said officials representing all facets of Orange County’s criminal justice system heard testimony last month from Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman about the successful track record of the Countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee that Edelman established in Los Angeles County 13 years ago.

And Orange County officials also did their own investigation. “Our agencies talked with their counterparts in Los Angeles and every one of them gave it rave reviews,” Coley said.

Joel Bellman, spokesman for Edelman, said the committee’s coordinating efforts helped Los Angeles County launch a pilot drug court program last spring. He said the program directs nonviolent first-time drug offenders into intensive, court-supervised drug rehabilitation programs as an alternative to jail.