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Watsonville youth crime-prevention shared with Arizona law enforcement

Santa Cruz Sentinel - 7/25/2018

July 25--WATSONVILLE -- In the summer, Watsonville Police officers can sometimes be found in the fields, taking water and food to farmworkers, in an effort to decrease gang violence.

Agua Con La Chota, or Water With A Cop, was initiated last year to bring police to the fields, to talk to a population likely unaware of resources offered by the police departments and local nonprofits, such as the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County -- an organization offering resources meant to combat poverty.

"Our migrant workers are working before the break of dawn until after the sun goes down," Honda said. "We take the resources to them. They are allowed to take a break. We sit down with them. We have conversations about everything, their needs, their concerns. Then we talk about police matters."

After the first round of weekly summer visits, Honda said the department made meaningful contact with an important group of South County residents.

"It breaks down some of the barriers that they might have had or the perceptions they might have had," Honda said. Many showed interest in legal services available to farmworkers, he said.

"It shows them that we're just part of the community," Honda said.

Agua Con La Chota is one of several programs offered by the Watsonville Police Department to curb criminal recidivism in South County.

The sheriff from Pinal County, Arizona -- the populous county south of Phoenix -- and his staff attended workshops Monday and Tuesday to learn from Watsonville Police Department and Santa Cruz County Probation Department on youth violence prevention.

"That's why we're here: We're trying to find ways other than booking juveniles," Sheriff Mark Lamb said. He and other officers from Pinal County Sheriff's Office attended workshops at Watsonville Police Department, he said, amid dwindling resources for juvenile detention centers and new Arizona laws that limit who ends up behind bars.

More than 30 percent of Watsonville residents are younger than 19 -- a driving force for the department's investment in youth-violence prevention, Chief David Honda said.

"We have to, as a community, divert our youth from the juvenile-justice system," Honda said. "It's an honor to be asked to showcase some of the programs we're doing that have been very successful, that are making an impact."

One of those programs, Caminos Hacia El Éxito -- Spanish for "Roads to Success" -- has helped dominate the success rate of the police department's outreach to at-risk youth, Honda said.

The program is offered in alliance with Pájaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance Inc. as a three- to six-month diversion program for first-time offenders, according to the nonprofit's website. Participants, who are 10 to 17 years old, aren't placed in juvenile probation. They instead take on diversion plans that include counseling, parent workshops and community service. The program lasts about three months.

"While this might not seem like a lot, it's an intense three months," Watsonville police spokeswoman Michelle Pulido said.

Children aren't required to participate, but they are encouraged to do so to avoid their cases from being transferred to the Probation Department, Pulido said.

From 2012 to 2018, 84 percent of Caminos participants -- totalling 436 -- have not re-offended, Pulido said.

When that statistic was read during the workshop, members of Pinal County Sheriff's Office said they were impressed by the results.

Programs are designed to suit the needs of each child and his or her family through "case management, guiding good choices, strengthening families, cognitive behavior therapy, counseling, teen peer court, restorative circles, neighborhood accountability boards, mentoring and pro-social activities," Pulido said.

The expense amounts to roughly $7,000 per child. Title II funds, federal money earmarked for education, were used from 2012 to 2014. A special sales tax helped pay for the program until a 2015 application for Title II grant money was approved for every qualifying child, according to the police department.

"Instead of going into the juvenile-justice system, we take them into our own system here, where they are held accountable in different ways," Honda said. "This is much more effective."

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(c)2018 the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.)

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