as manny scott was dating, it is really affecting the kids and the schools. of the last thing i wanted to state is that we are totally in support of the police officers that work in the schools. they are a cornerstone, and it has helped the children to have someone they know that they can count on. and one less thing, when the children go awol, the police officers find the foster children and keep them safe. we want to thank the department of for your devotion and commitment. >> it looks like we have to more public speakers and we have to go to the presentation because the use commissioners need to go home and do their homework. >> they just popped into the tenderloin boys and girls club. the whole room was in disarray.

i worked so hard to keep their attention, but it was lost. kids know you don't get up during the meeting. they could not stand it. they had to give a hug, a high five, say what the. i am the tenderloin clubhouse's director. i grew up in san francisco. by the time i was 12, the only cocci like to were the ones i knew, and i did not know very many of them. every cop by no i like. a lot of them are in this room. and of that was said is very true. not all police officers are good with kids. we know that. i will make your job the very easy and you guys can all go home. put more cops where there are kids. you have already heard it.

the officer called me and said, what can i do? that comes from other captains that no that is the way you do it. i work in a community where we are at mercy housing. we have a lot of kids in one place, a large population. he comes as an ambassador, not as a police officer. unheaofficer j.j. is just j.j. they know a cop they like. >> 2.4 million children have been incarcerated parents. i had a parent get arrested in front of me a few times and it was either hurting me

physically were emotionally. when my parents was arrested in front of me, the police barged through and wrote down the door. i was left with my dad's friend that i barely knew and was on drugs. i was waiting for my parents to return home. this automatically makes me want to put up a guard when police are around me and makes me feel unsafe. in order to improve the relationships of police officers, i recommend that officers do something. when people see police, the officers tend to have a look that says they want them to do badly so that they can put them in handcuffs to they can throw them in the back of the cop car. especially for the minority

group. also, if there were more programs where students can have a discussion with a few police officers to that they can have their voices heard, they feel the officers are there to help them and not just to take their parents away. or perhaps even a mentoring program where at risky and can be mentored by an officer are based on common interests so you feel more comfortable talking to them. thank you, i hope you take my recommendation into consideration. >> chief, share, commissioners. thank you for letting me speak today. i have spoken before the police commission many times in the past, but never before the youth commission. i have that a resident of the city and county of sentences go

for 43 years. i have daughters born and raised here. and in the of the graduating from college as well. if you look at the panel across from you, most of them are lawyers. it means their objectives were not just high school or college, but something beyond. take that as a direction. our chief of police is a graduate of city college. how lucky that as a steppingstone. politics start somewhere. you have already started your goal, believe it or not. i never had an opportunity at your age to get into politics. i never really thought about it. but if you looked at the overall agenda, most police officers are good guys. you are going there right and to about double every now and then.

learn to write a letter to the station commander, and get the badge number, and if they do something very good for you, do the same as well. write a letter praising them. i have done both. i think if you look at the future, your lucky that you have so many police organizations integrated with the youth. i don't think it is a normal situation in most cities. at least it wasn't in the town where i was raised. we didn't have any of those institutions. i wish you the best. [chime] >> good evening, everyone. i am the manager for the youth. i just wanted to follow with the theme today about advocacy.

when he talked about the police department and the youth across the city, the relationship comes from you. we talk about holding ourselves accountable, no matter what. for me, i have my run in with the police ever since i was a kid. at the same time, it was the police that gave me the opportunity here for different positions. i can contribute whether it is through suggestions or understanding politics of what is going on. we all have to work together and be there for each other. i appreciate doing advocacy for the young people, i appreciate the resource officers having the

open arm approach, especially with her leadership, that person in charge. and also with the asian police officers association in the bayview district, where they are willing to donate toys for young people. but what i do want advocate is about organizing the events coming to the youth and police, there is an ongoing dialogue and understanding about what culture competency is. it is not just about language, is about the culture of your people, the culture that has been around for a long time. celeste advocate for each other. let's make this the city that we all want to live in.

>> i am hoping this is with the right form to present a police complaint. i am here on behalf of my mom, this is her letter. it implied that i failed to stop a stop sign. the office of the cited me was parked at the corner next to the stop sign next to me. he was a caucasian male, grey hair, grey mustache, medium build. i saw the patrol car approximately two blocks away for the stop sign. does it make sense that i was going to run the stop sign? the patrol car after spotting

them, insists that i came to a complete stop alongside a large school bus. the second thing i want to protest is that at trial, a totally different officers showed up. he was a much younger caucasian male, how can complexion, black hair, about the same high. his testimony was a complete fabrication. he said that he had to chase me to issue a ticket. in my file protests is that the judge -- i was so upset that this was happening to me, it never occurred to me to have a comparative signature or badge number for the period of court. any assistance you can give, i felt it was necessary to expose this injustice.

this was only a traffic violation. officers should be exposed and it should be reexamined. president mazzucco: thanks, sir. next and last speaker. >> i am 18 years old with the bay area that they leave. i am also a youth ambassador that as a representative. i am here to talk about the relationship between the youth in our community and the police. communities have mixed emotions about how they feel about police because just like our child represents his parents, a

police officer represents his station or his unit, i guess you can say. we realize that every police officer isn't bad, but there is a significant amount of police officers that play a role, thinking they are rambo or robocop inside of our communities. this causes people to fear the police. it causes a lot of depression and depression and side of our communities. -- and opression in our communities. the police usually use excessive force or verbal harassment with the youth, and we need police officers to be a lot more conscious of the decisions they make because they shape the thought a the mentality of the youth and the actions that they used to commit. police have a big role in

shaping our lives. and the things that they do make us afraid of the people that are here to protect and serve us. it would be a good thing for the police to establish a relationship with the youth and let us know their position. the need to actually check up on the status of the youth, not just health wise, but mentally. i think that the police should play a bigger role in helping sustain the community and rebuilding our community. when the youth see police, they only see them in dangerous situations or causing third or removing chaos within our communities. i think it is a bad thing because we need to see police and our communities when bad things aren't going on. when we are having community

meetings, events, stuff like that. the police in there helping on a daily basis. president mazzucco: i'm sorry, your time is up. >> we want to have a similar goal for police to better the community and we need officers to be more conscious of the decision they make -- >> excuse me, sir, your time is up. president mazzucco: thank you very much, sir. will move into another brief explanation. there will be expert testimony scheduled for 30 minutes and we have sfpd and ccp presentations scheduled for 30 minutes. maybe some people can read back there is or reduce its. please call line item # two,

expert testimony. >> youth and youth serving organizations and academic experts. >> i think they have done it. >> if we can follow the order, i think we have dan. the experts, thank you for we know each other's presentation. >> thank you. i am the executive director of the center on juvenile and criminal justice based in san francisco. we are an organization that provides direct services, technical assistance, and policy analysis in the field of criminal justice. i have been around for 25 years

, here in san francisco. i have a lot of institutional memory. i was asked to come and present. i've taken a different direction. i would -- i thought what i would do is discuss crime in san francisco. i have a good story to tell. most people are not aware of how -- what has been happening with -- on the issue of youth crime. over the last 10 or 15 years. basically, this is the best behaved generation on record. we started to compile the uniform crime reports in the 1930's. that is our main source of information about youth crime. a collection of arrest statistics and reported crimes

and clearances from police departments. in 1952, they collected information specific to juvenile. it is our main source of information. since we have been gathering information, at least that is relatively accurate, use kraemer is at its lowest point ever reported. whatever has happened and no one has a complete explanation as to why that has occurred. it has occurred nationally and in san francisco. however, in saying that, i also may want to address some things that may be related and may not be related to why that crime wenrate went down. much of our public policy has been based on the idea that if

you pass harsher laws, incarcerate more people, that will drive down the crime rate. i can tell you unequivocally, there is no research that supports that and not in the area of juvenile justice. my agency has been tracking this for 15 years. as the state of california has been essentially eliminating its youth correctional system, what we used to call the california youth authority, we call the division of juvenile justice in our system -- our system of 11 institutions, there are three. we have gone from 10,000 kids in cursor did to 1000 today. it is continuing to drop and the governor is pushing for the proposal to close it completely. take as from a 19th century system hopefully into a 21st century system. specific to hear, san francisco is leading that trend.

roughly in the 1990's, the san francisco juvenile justice system was the subject of harsh criticism. it was two decades of harsh criticism for its monolithic practice that week -- kids would get arrested, police officers would take them into the youth guidance center and take them to the youth guidance center. they would be detained for some time and were released onto the street with you services and little follow-up. in the mid-1990s, it was decided that was not such a good approach. we needed to diversify our juvenile justice services and that came on the heels of a number of reports, a number of actions by the board of supervisors and various commissions. with the passage of children's fund in 1992, a new pot of money

was created for the establishment of innovative services. services that up to that point did not exist. it is the department of children and youth, and families. when that department was launched, what we saw is an unprecedented level of innovation and creativity. into not just the juvenile justice system but the entire youth service center. specific on the issue of -- in relation to serving youth who get in trouble, some of the most noted model programs were created as a result. this is coinciding at the time when san francisco stopped sending kids to the state youth correction facilities and started keeping them here. you will hear from one of those programs, huckleberry house. we have the detention diversion

advocacy program. the use the justice organization. there are so many, a lot of good programs. " we did is we created this diversified -- what we did is we created this diversified range of service options that had never existed before. instead of relying on institutionalization, and incarceration, we started to rely on community-based interventions. and culturally specific interventions because we have a diverse population. we expanded our community based organizations and those organizations when their work was recognized became recognized for their achievements by many of the city departments. in 2005.

bill embraced many of the things that were happening and expanded on it. at the time, we were almost operating two parallel systems. what had happened is we took a juvenile probation system that for many years have been criticized for being isolated. now embraced the is community- based approaches and created what is close to a national model. it is not widely known right now. i think it has been one of san francisco's well-kept secrets. i think we have something to talk about here. one of the things we have learned from these experiences here in san francisco echo what has happened around the country. a lot of research has been done over the last 15 to 20 years about what works. what works in changing -- taking a child who is heading down the wrong path and putting them on the right path.

some of the things we know do not work for what were popular, things like scared straight, that quick fixes. quick fixes do not work. criminal-justice system and troubles in balance. we go from boot camps and scared straight program spread what does work? , prince of interventions that address the specific needs of kids who come into the juvenile justice system. the kids to have what we call risk factors and i do not like to use those terms. the kids who have come from troubled homes or neighborhoods. come from poverty. and exhibit the symptoms that are attributed to that or failing in school. our -- they are experiencing violence, they have been traumatized, they have been the victims of abuse or witnessed violence over and over. programs that address those

specific circumstances in a kid's life are what makes the results and the research is there to show it. and we know what reduces recidivism rates are those programs that address this specific conditions. we know from this research that good programs, comprehensive programs to reduce recidivism by 20% to 40%. we know the conventional approaches of short-term incorporation -- incarceration or doing something -- doing nothing no. -- are doing nothing at all. san francisco has established itself as a model. in many ways, we have led the nation in establishing what those models are and as we move forward from here, i think that one of the areas that we need to look at it is reducing some of the fragmentation that sometimes

happens between public agencies, some of the youth serving agencies that are represented here. how do you bring all those together? a lot of times, different agencies, different entities have different agendas and different approaches and different velocities. sometimes philosophies and treatment approaches are outdated. one of the things i would suggest in terms of the police department and how -- i know there is innovative things happening in the police department. one of the things i always encourage, whether it is probation or cbo's, we need to get to a point where we are reducing the fragmentation of areas and develop some joint training approaches. joint training approaches on information that tells us what those -- what effective interventions are. and some other things that we not -- we are not always aware of related to juvenile justice and adolescent behavior. one thing we do know is that

kids are going through stages of cognitive development. we are growing. human beings go through i did a full -- identifiable stages of cognitive development. as our brains mature, our behavior changes. this goes along with the studies on youth crime. we note even kids who are heavily involved in juvenile crime at the age of 14, 15, 16, and 17, as they start to get older, suddenly, the behavior changes. they turn it around for whatever reason. part of it is what we call in the criminal-justice field the maturation of fact. there will age out faster if --

they will eat out faster if we do not damage them. we can make things worse by over-intervening. learning about the stages of development in a child's life and also what interventions are most effective? when to intervene is crucial. we also know that sometimes intervening too soon or inappropriate intentions can cause as much damage -- can damage the kid and increase recidivism rates. there is a lot of research about what works, what are effective interventions, and we have more knowledge now than we ever had in the past. i hope that as we move forward, that we develop a joint training sessions where we bring this information together and everybody comes together and works together. because the kids are showing up -- the youth crime rates are

lower in -- the lowest in history. we have a lot of kids who have a lot of trouble that need our help. i will leave it at that. thank you. president mazzucco: thank you. our next speaker, denise coleman. >> sorry. it is right on the -- >> there is copies of this

powerpoint right up front. >> good evening. [inaudible] thank you for inviting [inaudible] [inaudible] the youth commission felt it was important [inaudible] this body here, because people needed to need -- know more [inaudible] with the young people when they come and and how are the come and and how are the intervention --