State Board OKs $40.5 Million for New Juvenile Hall

Ventura County will receive $40.5 million to replace its overcrowded and aging Juvenile Hall with a state-of-the-art complex designed to hold more than twice as many offenders, the state Board of Corrections announced Thursday.

The new expanded facility will help increase public safety because it means more juvenile offenders will be taken off the street, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Miles Weiss, who oversees the juvenile unit. Police officers frequently avoid arresting youths who commit crimes because of overcrowding at Juvenile Hall, he said.

“There are a significant number of juveniles who should be housed, but they are not,” Weiss said. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able throw a much wider net and retain juveniles who commit serious and violent crimes longer.”

The new expanded facility, which would be built within the next four years, will also be safer for inmates and staff, officials said. Current quarters are so cramped, probation officials say, that rival gang members cannot be separated and often get into fights.

“Having adequate space makes such a tremendous difference,” said Chief Probation Officer Cal Remington, who attended Thursday’s Sacramento meeting with six other county officials. “You can eliminate a lot of problems when you can separate those that need to be separated.”

He also anticipates that the county will use programs such as electronic monitoring, or house arrest, more infrequently.

The new detention facility is designed to hold up to 420 offenders, more than twice the number now housed in four facilities. The total project cost is estimated at $64 million, with the county responsible for picking up about one-third of the cost.

The additional space and staff will enable the county to reform and rehabilitate young offenders more effectively, said Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren. He and others hope the county will expand its substance-abuse and mental-health programming at the new facility.

Perren said he often decides where to send youth offenders based on crowding and sometimes places them under house arrest.

“Every single program has a waiting list, and we’re working at 50% over capacity,” he said. “We will actually be able to make decisions with the kids in mind, instead of being totally driven by space constraints.”

Now that funding is secured, the pressure is on county officials to find a site for the new juvenile center. The county risks losing funding if construction isn’t completed by May 2003 and the building opened by September.

County officials are considering two industrial properties in El Rio and Saticoy as potential construction sites. Both properties are between 42 and 50 acres in size, with each estimated to cost $3 million to $4 million.

Last month, a delegation of county representatives traveled to Sacramento to urge a Board of Corrections committee to fund the detention center. Remington said the photographs of the county’s 60-year-old Juvenile Hall and the statistics and problems associated with overcrowding were persuasive.

Although Juvenile Hall has only 84 beds, it houses an average of 109 youths daily. The highest number of youths in the hall on a single day was 132. In 1997, Juvenile Hall was crowded all but one day of the year.

The county will continue facing such problems until the new center is built, officials said.

“We’re going to be limping for four years,” said Chris Weidenheimer, head of Juvenile Hall. “It’s going to be tough to keep things going here.”

The board committee ranked Ventura County No. 2 out of 45 counties in terms of need, behind Contra Costa County in Northern California. It also recommended that Ventura County receive the largest portion of the $168 million state and federal money available to counties. The Board of Corrections endorsed those suggestions Thursday.

“We have an extreme need, and that’s why the board we think approved the money,” said Supervisor Judy Mikels, who also attended the meeting in the state Capitol Thursday. “But the sad thing is that all over the state there is that need.”

The corrections board also based the funding decisions on cost effectiveness, the construction plan and the commitment by each county. Although counties are required to pay only 10% of the cost, Ventura County has agreed to pay more than one-third of the estimated $64-million cost.

The youth detention center would be part of a larger juvenile justice complex that officials hope to build in the next decade. The complex would include six courtrooms and court-related administrative offices.

Remington said that the benefits of the new center are many.

“Not only will it make for a strong juvenile justice system now, but the center will last for at least 40 or 50 years.”

Times staff writer Tracy Wilson contributed to this story.