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 intervention -- how the intervention -- [inaudible] a lot of people want to know what' carc is.

and carc has been around for 14 years. it was started in 1998 when there was money from the board of corrections. mayor brown felt that money needed to go toward revamping the juvenile justice system in san francisco. carc is one of the programs that was created with that funding of money. the unique thing is we're at the very front end of the system. when young people get arrested, they are arrested and brought to carc for a variety of not seriously violent crimes or crimes where the there are serious injury to the victims. here are some of the police officers that are in our

facility during -- doing their day-to-day work. this is the muni task force. they have brought young people in for some graffiti on the muni. i am trying to go quickly. i want you to look at the fact that the carc gets young people at the point of arrest is unique. commissioner chan: is like -- ca carc is like triage. at that point they can be advised by our probation officer who directs the officer whether or not to bring the young person to carc or take them to jjc.

when a young person comes to us, there are a variety of things that happen. they come and talk to our on- site probation officer. they are dealt with with our case managers who do quite an extensive assessment of their needs, their strengths, their interests. we want to find out from these young people, what can we do to keep you from going further into the juvenile justice system and to keep you from going re- arrested again. what is happening in your life? what are the things you want to do that you have never done that perhaps as case managers, we can get you that foot in the door and we can get you started. maybe you love animals. we can get you an internship at the shelter. you can learn at the animal shelter so you can learn all about animals. those are the kinds of things we have done. prairie issue for young people when they come into school, -- primary issue for people who

come into school. their attendance or their grades. there is always some kind of issue. sometimes it is a safety issue. the case managers will deal with that. we have been very successful with helping our young people out with their educational outcomes. this gives you an idea of what we have helped -- the percentages to what we have helped young people do. we have had an 82% improvement in behavior is, a 65% improvement in their attendance, and an 84% successful completion of all the young people coming into the program. again, the assessment peace is very unique. it is a holistic and a psychosocial kind of assessment. it gets into the meat of who these young people are. in addition, it allows the case managers to get an idea at 2 --

of what the eye -- to get an idea of what is going on at home. they are not in a bubble. there are affected by things happening at home and happening in their community. in addition, being able to talk to the young people. we talk to the parents as well. this is one of the client's our work that keyman -- came into carc. he had been arrested for graffiti and had been arrested more than once. and had come to carc more than once. it was determined this young person really did not like destroying property. he really liked art. he wanted to do art. there was a fund or grant that was being distributed by youth funding youth ideas. we helped them do a proposal. there were able to get

materials, canvas, the paint and ink they needed. they made this merrill as well as a mural at john bearden high school. -- this mural as well as a mural at john burton posco. there will work with an attorney to get a job so they can continue to beautify san francisco. you ask, more than youth -- who are the youth who come? the majority are kids of color which is true for the criminal justice system, period. we have 34% african-american, 30% latino, 19% asian american, 10% multiracial. the kids' ages range from 11-13,

18%. 16-17, 40%. most of our kids are 14-15. we see 65% of the kids we see have misdemeanors. 35% have been charged with low- to mid-level felonies. the important thing about young people when they come is the majority of them have been exposed to violence. violence is huge. that is part of the reason they have such an adversarial response to officers. police officers, when they see police officers, that is the first thing that comes to their mind. most of our young people have been exposed to violence. when you are exposed to violence, you have a tendency to kind of repeat the behavior that

you have been exposed to. so research has shown -- young people that are exposed to violence are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. suffer from depression, anxiety. posttraumatic disorders, fail or have difficulty in school. and become delinquent and engage in criminal behavior. that is very, very true and it is one of the reasons why we have hired a full-time therapist to help us remedy some of the situations and to try to prevent our young people from continuing in this cycle of violence. we are very unique. we have the onside juvenile probation officer. there is a deputy sheriff that takes care of security. there are three community-based subcontractors that are with us. cyc, brothers against guns, and

instituto familiar de la raza. the interesting thing about the dgo, it instructs the officers to bring juvenile and two -- not to -- to avoid is the proper language. avoid bringing juvenile into any police facility, including district stations, that contains all locked -- that contains a lot of four adults. -- lock up for adults. the dgo goes on to explain that only after a member has made a reasonable efforts from the field or from the juvenile center facilities such as huckleberry house or jjc to --

may a member brink of a juvenile to a facility that -- bring a juvenile to a facility that includes a lot of four adults. there is room where officers can bring people to do their investigations. since the cannot bring them into the police station. we do not want them doing it on the street or in the back of a vehicle. there is an interview room that is located at carc and jjc for officers to conduct their interviews. this room has been set up. it has a life scan and hoda machine, and has a secured and locked the door. behind there is all the equipment officers need to further their investigations. there is a system there and a tape recorder. a paper shredder. everything they need behind in this locked door. so, we think it is important for

officers when they are in the field to be able to access not only this interview room but the interview room at jjc. officers are under a lot of constrained to get in, to do what they need to do and to get back out in the field. our responsibility is when they do bring a young people in to make sure that they are able to do their paperwork, they are able to do it sufficiently, completely, and thoroughly. we get them back out on the street and probably -- in probably no more than 15 minutes, a lot of times less. it is important for the young people to know their rights. there is a know your rights brochure, language has been inserted from the dgo. that should be in every school, every youth center, every park and rec center so these people

know how to respond to an officer when an officer approaches them. last but not least, this is the staff at carc. we really do appreciate the work that we do with sfpd. we work closely with most of the officers. chief sir is a huge supporter and fans. the officers that come down to us over the years, their perspective about what we do and who we are is -- has changed because they understand the kids are not just coming in and we're not just releasing them. we're delving into their lives to hopefully make a difference, to prevent them from going deeper into the system and being read-arrested. our recent -- recidivism rate is 18%. 18% are not rearrested.

a year to two years after they were brought there and their cases have been closed. thank you so much. president mazzucco: thank you so much. [applause] >> good evening. i am a san francisco native. i am a young adult advocate and member of the youth commission youth justice committee. i am also of formerly incarcerated youths who has had her share fronts -- run-ins' with the police. i'm here to share my experience is interacting with police and why substandard youth training is critical to improve interactions. the year is 2001. it is saturday night and 30 p.m. and i am walking down mission street with a group of friends

on our way home from a party. i am 15. two male cops stopped me and my friends and said we have been reported and i had fit the description. i am not really hearing him. in my mind, all i know is i have not done anything wrong. i am late getting home. if i missed the last bus, i am going to have to walk home. with that, i say to the officer, "i do not know what you are talking about. i have to get home." i walked away. the officer grabbed me and slammed me to the ground and put handcuffs on me. i was wearing a shirt that had once leave and after the attack, i just had been exposed. i kept asking the officer if he could put my shirt but he refused. the next thing i know, my friends and i were hauled off in a police van and taken to a district station. i remember being released with a piece of paper saying i had not

been detained and the officer wrote me off at home. i could not believe what had happened to me. i was shocked the police would treat a young girl the way they did. i was on probation at the time. what i told my probation officer what happened, they said there was nothing i could do about it because it occurred while i was out past curfew. unfortunately. i cannot believe it. looking back, i realized i should not have walked away when the officer was talking to me but also, the officer posing response highlights where training in how to better communicate with youth is different how they would communicate with adults. also where the could have training on how to respond in a way that would have been more effective. i also now wonder if there was a report of a female flight, white female officers were not dispatched. -- a female fight, why female officers were not as fast.

when i began working with the center, i learned my rights in the system and also tips on how to interact with police. i was taught about body language and tone and how to communicate in a way that would prevent negative outcomes. cywd works with young woman involved in the criminal-justice system. a large piece of the program is educating youth on their rights in the system and how to fight for their rights and the rights of young people in general. last month they held their fourth conference that brought together 100 youth to educate them about their rights in the justice system. their rights as parents, informing them about gang injunctions, and their rights in schools. this is where the community and community-based organizations play an important role in educating our youth about their rights.

also schools can play a critical role in educating you about their rights. the pamphlets the san francisco police department has created can be distributed at all middle and high schools throughout the city. it is worthy to note that there is no policy about how police can interact with schools -- with the youth in schools. sfpd states that "it 6 partnerships with families, schools, and service providers" and the sfud can better facilitate communication. more than educating youth about their rights, it is impaired if the police department have more than a three-hour procedural training it receives and especially order 7.01. what is needed is more attentive -- subset of training and that teaches police officers

the s -- de escalation tactics. training that will help officers implement and improve interactions. i hope my testimony conveys the importance of these trainings to foster healthier and more positive relationships between police and youth and. -- police and youth. thank you very much. president mazzucco: thank you. [applause] president mazzucco: robin bonner is our next speaker. >> good evening. i would like to say that i can appreciate everybody being patient and diligent and -- in

listening all the constituencies we represent. we should be proud of ourselves because it is 9:00 p.m. i would like to thank everybody for being here and i would like to say one word, a couple of words before get into what is i do with youth. can everyone think back to your progress since -- your pre- pubescence e? thank about -- think about when you are most volatile. think about those crucial moments. when you have to think and react on tehran and were you prepared to do that -- think about those moments. think about what you did as a youth. think about what these students in -- and transitional age youth could be going through when they interact with police and professionals and parents and

anybody in the community. think about these comments and think about how they deal with them. how is that they deal with them? what is the first thing that happens? do they fight or do they communicate? communication is usually preferred. not all use our at that stage. some are at the flight or fight as my esteemed colleague said earlier. cognitive behavior, adolescent brain development. also, there is this thing called communication that some people learn as they get older and some people are trained to do from very young. what is it that our great city and many cbo's have been trying to do is teach communication skills to help them be successful in society and school? before getting into my testimony, please remember those final moments when you were vulnerable. think about what you could or could not do to put them -- yourselves in these good or bad

situations. my first point would be i worked with the bay area urban league. we teach policy debate. pass of the -- half of the police commission is lawyers, you know about debate. you know it is a challenging, rigorous activity that requires research, analysis, critical thinking, and public speaking. some of those traits and mentioned are some of the things you do when you went through -- when you interact with professionals and people of the community. at the center there are two things we strive to do. i mention this because this is on our website. this is something my colleagues have been striving to teach me. in -- intellectual skills and social steam is something you need to navigate. -- ssocial esteem is something you need to navigate.

activities -- i have noticed a change within myself and the students i have served. i used to go to downtown high school. i graduated from there and i was a debater for that school. now i am a program assistant and i teach debate. the student who was up here was my student. there was another gentleman with a hooded sweatshirt that spoke clearly and concisely about his needs in the community. those are two prime examples of young males who come from different backgrounds who have struggled in their education and came up here and spoke beautifully. with the help of debate and activity, they came up here and did just that. that was the skill set that was given to students in the community. that is a possible interaction they could have for themselves and be accountable for. do all students have that opportunity to get this type of extracurricular activity in

training? they do not. what do some students resort to if they're not taught the skills? vulnerability. they are vulnerable. they're in a place in time within themselves were they do not know what to do or how to react. what is that they do? two things. they communicate or they fight. nine times that of 10, that is where some of our students find themselves. fighting or arguing with the police. does this put them in a good predicament? no. it is something they must do in order to be effective members of society. with debate and -- with cbo's students can learn some of these skills. i would like to also further discuss that. with this activity and learning how to communicate, it works on both sides of the table. it works for the police and for students. as a peer educator, two

recommendations. open dialogue with students. the police can possibly be trained on or something they can do for themselves. you do not have to pull outside the bus stop and talk to students from inside the car. you can park around the corner and walk up on them and address them and treat them as people or as young adults. the flight or fight and the cognitive behavior does not kick in so fast and they are at a point where they do not know how to react, where they are amateur or vulnerable or at the best they can be. let them see the situation and react so they can have good interaction. when they go to carc, they have their story straight. they're not in a very vulnerable stage. also, i would like to say that learning how to communicate is

very key. when students communicate with police and police communicate with students we can have this open dialogue and we can progress to do better things. we're here to advocate and make change. we're not here to criticize or provoke any thoughts or feelings. thank you for time. president mazzucco: thank you for your time. you might want to take these skills and go to law school someday. there is a recommendation at the table. that concludes that 30-minutes for that -- the 30 minutes for the presentations. we will look into the police department's presentation and the bocc presentation. >> i am sorry. there are two more. patricia and david are still here. >> they are gone.

>> this evening. -- good evening. police youth commissioners, director, command staff, and our distinguished presenters and the public. i am commanding officer of the sfpd special victims unit. we would like to briefly present you some highlights of the many long term positive relationships the sfpd has established with our city's youth. and if we are ready to go. why don't we start out with chief suhr's vision where a police officer's role is to prepare our youth for tomorrow's challenges.