LAKEPORT – Citing serious overcrowding, gang problems and a poor facility design, the county's chief probation officer asked the Board of Supervisors to fund a study for a new juvenile hall facility.
Steve Buchholz told the board Tuesday that, over the last few years, the need for a place to house juvenile offenders has outgrown the current Juvenile Hall's capacity.
Buchholz explained that there are regularly more juvenile inmates that the 40-person stated capacity.
“We are experiencing not just overcrowding but severe gang problems and kids with mental health issues,” said Buchholz.
In order to do any renovation on the current 25-year-old facility, or before considering a new building, a needs assessment has to be completed, Buchholz said.
That assessment promises to be a long and involved process, said Buchholz, lasting between six to eight months and costing $30,000. The consultant Probation has in mind, he said, is Fred Campbell of Criminal Justice Research Foundation.
The Juvenile Hall has a poor layout, said Buchholz, with long hallways, poor acoustics and not enough space overall.
County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox suggested that if the board agreed to do the study, they also needed to be prepared to consider building a new facility.
“I don't know that you've ever had a thorough discussion of that,” said Cox.
The Juvenile Hall hasn't been expanded since it was originally built, Cox said. “It's never had the expansion it was originally designed for.”
Cox anticipated that the cost to build a new Juvenile Hall will run well into the millions, even with matching funds from the state.
He said he had hoped this year to prepare a county capital improvements plan, and that would address Juvenile Hall. “We just haven't had the opportunity to do that yet,” he said.
Buchholz urged the board to consider the study based on his department's needs. “I do think there is value in doing the assessment study even if you decide later on you don't want to build the facility,” he said.
He said that building costs are going up by between 5 and 7 percent annually and a new facility likely would cost millions of dollars. He said Yolo County opened their new 90-bed juvenile facility last year at a cost of $12 million.
Buchholz guessed that to build a similar facility in Lake County would cost a total of $16 million, with the county needing to come up with a 25-percent match of $4 million.
The state may offer as much as $400 million in grants in the 2007-08 fiscal year for juvenile facilities, Buchholz's report to the board explained. However, he said it's predicted that this will be the last significant offering of such funds for the next 15 to 20 years.
“I believe it is critical to the public safety of our community to aggressively pursue grant funding for a new detention facility,” Buchholz wrote in his report.
Even though a 90-bed facility is more than twice the size of the county's current Juvenile Hall, Buchholz said he believed if Probation had the space, they would be able to fill it.
The board unanimously approved Buchholz's request for the study, transferring $30,000 to cover the needs assessment study. In addition, the board waived the consultant selection process and approving the proposed contract between the county and Criminal Justice Research Foundation for the consultant services to conduct the study, which Buchholz also had requested.
In an interview following the meeting, Buchholz said the needs assessment will help the county plan for which direction to go with its juvenile facility – either expanding the current one or planning for a new building – and how much it will need to seek in grant funds.
Capacity issues are critical, Buchholz said. Last year, they were over their 40-person capacity for 87 days; so far this year, they've surpassed capacity 69 days, he said.
Several factors are contributing to those increases in juvenile inmates, said Buchholz, who has been with the county for nearly 31 years.
First, the county's population has been growing, he said.
A second reason is gangs, said Buchholz. “The gang activity has increased pretty dramatically in my opinion, the last year or two.” With that, he added, comes increased law enforcement activity and arrests.
There are also a lot of juveniles with serious emotional and mental health issues, Buchholz said. He said severe conduct disorders and other diagnoses make some juveniles difficult to maintain in home environments.
Buchholz said he's hopeful the consultant can begin work on the assessment in the next few weeks and possibly have it done within six to seven months.
He said he expects that if the assessment finds the county needs a new facility, it will likely suggest building a juvenile hall that can sustain more population growth, which would mean 90 beds or more.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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