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Parents of juveniles in the criminal justice system will no longer be required to pay administrative fees for juvenile hall detention in Santa Clara County, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.
The board voted unanimously on the proposal six months after a yearlong moratorium was placed on assessing fees, according to the office of board president Dave Cortese.
“As the county, we are not in the business of adding financial burdens to families already facing the challenges of a youth in detention,” Cortese said in a statement.
“We are in the business of helping families thrive. Eliminating these fees and fines helps us achieve just that,” Cortese said.
Under state law, the county can charge fees and fines related to juvenile hall detention and probation, including juvenile court ward fees, electronic monitoring fees and public defender representation fees, according to Cortese’s office.
A family can wind up having to pay up to $930 per month, or $30 a day. Outstanding fees that, for some families, can total thousands of dollars, are owed as a civil judgment, which if unpaid can result in wages being garnished, bank accounts levied or tax refunds being intercepted.
The county is the fourth in the state to permanently eliminate the collection of juvenile administrative fees, according to Cortese’s office.
Alameda and Contra Costa counties also passed moratoriums on imposing the fees last year.
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Actually, this story is incorrect. Families will have to pay for the cost of housing (jailing) juveniles. The financial burden will be in the form of higher taxes, or reduced services in other areas, on law-abiding families. And many of these families, to included victims, struggle everyday just as well. Please report the truth next time! The old saying that “there’s no free lunch” certainly applies here.
Holy cow, Observer, you’re a jerk! Thankfully the rest of us in Mountain View aren’t like you.
@Friendly Neighbor
So where do think the money is going to come from? Printing presses in juvenile hall?
You poor, angry fellow. May God bless you.
There’s something AOK with me about parents taking responsibility for their own kids, whether that be juvenile hall or SAT preparation workshops.
So Mommy and Daddy FAIL their child and then get to send the bill to THE REST OF US LAW ABIDING CITIZENS??? Really? And then WE THE TAXPAYING PUBLIC get to provide dozens of “2nd chances” to these little thugs? Part of the problem is obvious when we watch the daily marches and riots that are filled with people whose Mommies and Daddies NEVER taught that there is a WINNER and a LOSER in an election, and who also probably made sure that EVERY CHILD who played in youth sports got a “winner’s” trophy REGARDLESS of how they performed IN THAT SPORT!
Observer and Zap are 100% correct! The program should also be expanded such that if the juvenile is an illegal they are charged the lawyer fees to deport them.
Wow, people can’t hold off on dehumanizing their neighbors.
How exactly does charging these fees help break the cycle of poverty and crime for our neighbors? Or have the rest of you just given up on any pretense of our criminal justice system having that as a goal?
Classic. Parents of juveniles in the “system” are released from any form of reliability. Just classic. And anyone who calls it out are called racist and are accused of being ‘dehumanizing’.
Keep drinking the koolaid. Frightening.
What’s your solution, take more of their money? What does that accomplish? Or are you just posturing to feel superior?
The dehumanizing aspect is calling a person “an illegal,” in that you are reducing them to nothing more than their immigration status.
@Friendly Neighbor:
I have been merely pointing out the false logic and rhetoric of the county’s change in policy. You, in return, engage in ad hominem attacks and accusations.
May I point out to you that the justice system has always taken money from people who violate the law. Should the police no longer issue traffic citations that carry monetary fines? Or should they just fine a certain class or race of people? Are the terms murderer, rapist, pedophile or thief not equally dehumanizing terms that describe illegal activity? It’s a slippery slope indeed.