By Zach Friend, Supervisor, Second District
The Criminal Justice Council of Santa Cruz County was created more than 30 years ago in an effort to provide increased coordination and cooperation between criminal justice partners — government, non-profit, educational and others — to reduce youth involvement in gangs.
The Criminal Justice Council, or CJC, focuses discussions on prevention and intervention as well as reentry programs — rather than simply a suppression model.
For example, a little over a year ago the CJC hosted a conference on the role of women and girls in gangs. The conference afforded criminal justice and community service providers and the community at-large an opportunity to hear from experts on the role of women and girls in gangs as well as a panel of young women with lived experience in gangs.
This is a rarely-discussed facet of gang involvement and one that the CJC felt was important to highlight in order to improve how community-based outreach occurs to women/girls in gangs. As a result of the conference, agencies began looking into outreach efforts to this population and ways they could improve reaching women and girls who are in, or may join, gangs.
Additionally, the CJC has worked with school districts, nonprofits and others on intervention and prevention programs to reduce youth involvement in gangs in general. From supporting educational efforts, nonprofit sporting leagues, conferences that provide viewpoints from those with lived experience and more. The CJC does these events with volunteers and small contributions from the member agencies.
Who Is On The CJC?
A wide variety of community public safety partners serve on the CJC.
Local police chiefs, the county sheriff, the chief probation officer, district attorney, leadership of two local nonprofits, two local judges, the public defender, the county superintendent of schools, the president of Cabrillo College, two county supervisors, elected representatives from the local cities and more participate.
It’s a diverse group that, having participation from local education and nonprofit social program providers, helps create discussions beyond just backend suppression activity toward front-end prevention opportunities.
Focus This Year
This year, the CJC decided to focus our efforts on law enforcement policies and procedures and working to standardize (where possible) some policies across the county.
Many local agencies have begun to implement reforms — including policies around warrants and community contact. But often these policies aren’t known and if they don’t exist there isn’t necessarily a standard in understanding where the gaps are or how current policies can be improved.
With these diverse perspectives at the table this year, CJC is hoping to create a model for criminal justice efforts such as communicating existing policies and creating greater criminal justice reforms — including policy and procedure updates.
To Learn More
The CJC meets quarterly and these meetings are open to the public. Over the last year (and into the foreseeable future) these meetings have been virtual. The next meeting of the CJC is on May 13 at 3 p.m. As an all-volunteer organization we are still working on a website with more information on the CJC and future/upcoming meetings (the website is santacruzcjc.org) but you are always welcome to call my office and we can provide you with the link for attending.
For the last few years I’ve served as chair of the CJC and would be happy to provide additional information.
•••
If you have any questions about the CJC, or any other matters in our district, please don’t hesitate to call me at 454-2200. I’m maintaining regular updates on social media at www.facebook.com/supervisorfriend regarding COVID updates and other County-related matters.