Juvenile Probation Departments
By Lou Serrano, Director of Juvenile Services, Ector County
There are approximately 168 juvenile probation departments in the State of Texas. Juvenile probation departments will process and handle through local rehabilitation services approximately 97 percent of all crimes committed by juvenile age offenders (ages 10-17), while committing 3 percent of referred offenses to the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), the state agency that handles the state’s most violent and chronic juvenile offenders.
Rehabilitation services provided by juvenile probation departments may include teen court programs, first offender programs, counseling programs, deferred prosecution probation, formal court adjudication probation, residential placement services, and specialized offender programs, including, sex offender treatment/supervision, and intensive supervision probation.
A jurisdiction’s juvenile probation department may be as small as one chief juvenile probation officer who “does it all,” to a department composed of a chief juvenile probation officer and hundreds of department employees with both probation services and detention services.
Some county governments receive probation services from an adjacent county, due to their county population and/or low juvenile age population. Probation departments operate under the authority granted by Title III of the Texas Family Code and various statewide standards. Juvenile probation departments focus on holding juvenile offenders, and frequently their parents, accountable for their actions, while protecting the community from continued acts of delinquency. This may be accomplished through a model of “progressive sanctions” that increase the consequences for continued acts of delinquency.
The scope of services provided in each jurisdiction is usually determined by the county juvenile board and available funding provided by the county commissioners court. Juvenile probation departments should be viewed as “one piece of the juvenile justice puzzle,” which consists of a state level component and a local level component.
At the state level, the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC), created by the Texas Legislature in 1981, provides oversight and support to local juvenile probation departments. The purpose of this agency is to bring consistency and quality to juvenile probation services. Enabling legislation may be found in Chapter 141 of the Texas Human Resources Code.
Juvenile probation departments are funded with both state and county funds, and TJPC is responsible for the distribution of funds appropriated by the Legislature. In the coming fiscal year (2005-2006), TJPC will distribute approximately $140 million dollars to local governments to assist in the operations of juvenile probation services. These funds provide roughly 40 percent of the funding needed to operate juvenile probation departments; the remaining 60 percent will be provided from local governments.
In order to receive state funds, local county juvenile boards enter into contract with the TJPC to accept state financial assistance and thus agree to follow the various statewide administrative standards. The TJPC is mandated through legislation to “promulgate and enforce” these standards. Oversight and enforcement of statewide standards is made through periodic monitoring visits that are conducted by employees of the TJPC. At the conclusion of a monitoring visit the local juvenile board is provided with written reports and provided with an opportunity to respond and correct any non-compliance findings. In the event a county juvenile board refuses to correct a non-compliance finding, the TJPC has the authority to withhold state financial assistance. Many of the statewide standards that juvenile probation departments must adhere to can be found in the Texas Administrative Code, Chapters 341, 342, 343, 347, 348, 349 and 351.
At the local level, every county in the state has a statutorily created juvenile board that performs oversight functions for the juvenile probation department within its jurisdiction. Although many of these statutes are generally the same, there are some minor differences, and the particular statute creating the juvenile board for a particular county should be consulted to determine membership and powers. These provisions can be found in Human Resources Code Sections 152.0071 through 152.2571. Typically, all district court judges, county court judges, and statutory county court judges are among the members. However, to demonstrate how each jurisdiction’s board may differ, the juvenile board of Deaf Smith County (Hereford) is composed of the county judge, two members appointed by the city of Hereford, two members appointed by the county commissioners court, and two members appointed by the Hereford Independent School District. The juvenile board of Deaf Smith County is very unique and was created this way since each of the appointing entities provides 33.3 percent of the local funding required to operate the department.
The basic responsibilities of all juvenile boards are to:
- establish a juvenile probation department and employ a chief juvenile probation officer, and
- adopt a budget and establish policies, including financial policies, for juvenile services within the jurisdiction of the board.
A juvenile board or juvenile probation department is a “specialized local entity” under section 140.003 of the Local Government Code. Because of this, the county juvenile board is independent of the county and can enter into contracts without approval of the county commissioners court. Also, the county juvenile board has authority over employment decisions, travel policies, and general management and financial decisions regarding a juvenile probation department. So, what is the role of the county commissioners court? The commissioners court plays a vital role in the operations of a juvenile probation department by providing funding to supplement the state contributions. Historically, local governments have provided approximately 60 percent of the total funding to local probation departments. The commissioners court determines the amount of county funds that will be budgeted to the juvenile probation department in each budget year. This is usually done after the county juvenile board submits to the commissioners court a budget for the coming fiscal year. Due to legislation passed in 1997, this funding level must be equal to or greater than funding provided in fiscal year 1994.
The commissioners court is limited to reviewing only the amount of funds to be budgeted from county funds for the juvenile probation department, not state, federal or other funds. Once the commissioners court has approved the amount of funds to be spent over a budget year, the funds become funds of the juvenile probation department to be disbursed as directed by the juvenile board and lose their character as county funds. For a better understanding of this “unique” relationship, there have been three major Attorney General Opinions that have attempted to define the role of the commissioners court when it comes to local juvenile probation departments. These opinions include; Opinion Attorney General No. DM-460, 1996, Opinion Attorney General No. JC-0085, 1999, and Opinion Attorney General No. JC-0209, 2000.
For almost 25 years, this system that includes both a state level and local level component has been at work. Many view the Texas system as being innovative and creative in its approach to difficult juvenile justice issues and problems. Each component has distinct functions, duties, and responsibilities, and together these components make up one of the most progressive and modern juvenile justice systems in the nation.
Since 1995, statistical information collected and reported by the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission reflects a reduction in felony referrals, including violent felony referrals (homicide, attempted homicide, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault), from 8,542 reported offenses in 1995 to 6,260 reported offenses in 2003, even though the juvenile-age population increased over this same period of time. Much of this success can be attributed to the working relationship between the state level agencies and the local level governments that have taken an active role in developing and implementing innovative and creative programs to address the issue of juvenile crime.
