Probation Chief Briefs Congressional Aides on Realignment Progress

San Diego County Chief Probation Officer Mack Jenkins was among a panel of Public Safety Realignment experts in the state that briefed congressional aides last week on local strategies for implementation and how it is working.Probation Chief Mack Jenkins spoke on Capitol Hill last week about the impact of public safety realignment on San Diego County and the state.

Jenkins participated in a panel to brief Congressional staffers and national groups about California’s effort to reduce the prison population as part of public safety realignment. The panel was organized by Congressmen Adam Schiff and Paul Cook, both from California, during a time when the federal government is also reconsidering its prison system.

Public safety realignment took effect in the California in 2011, shifting responsibility for non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders from the state to counties. That means community offenders who would have previously been in state prison or on state parole now serve their sentences in County jail or under County Probation’s supervision.

Since realignment began, California’s prison population has declined by more than 25,000 people or 17 percent.

“From a San Diego standpoint, I talked about how we already had an exceptional collaboration with law enforcement, the courts and even community providers before the task of implementing it came to us and that has helped us immeasurably in managing this at the local level,” Jenkins said. ” We feel as though we are making good progress in implementing realignment.”

Jenkins also discussed Probation’s Community Transition Center where all state prisoners report before transitioning into the community, as well as realignment’s effect on recidivism, which is when an offender commits a new crime. Last month, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation released a report that tracked recidivism rates for 58,000 offenders across the state who were supervised by probation instead of the state.

“The CDCR report shows that for the realigned offenders that county probation officers statewide are doing as well and arguably better than what they were doing at the state,” said Jenkins. “As for the reduction in prison populations, some states have made some reductions but nothing on the scale of California.”

Jenkins was joined on the panel by Matt Cate, executive director of the California State Association of Counties, as well as other government and law enforcement representatives from California.

The event was sponsored by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the National Association of Counties (NACO), and the American Probation and Parole Association.

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Probation Officers Get Look at Service Provider Options

Getting probationers the right kind of help is key to getting their lives on track, and San Diego County probation officers Thursday picked up new knowledge about options available for those they supervise.

North County probation officers and staff met with community service providers for drug and alcohol treatment, vocational training, mentoring and housing as part of the Community Resource Directory Expo in San Marcos. They met with representatives from 45 program providers such as the Alpha Project, the Mano a Mano Foundation, Deaf Community Services, North County Serenity House, North County Lifeline and Volunteers in Probation.

 “Our goal is to link offenders with the right treatment services based on their assessed needs and this provider expo allows probation officers to discuss specific plans and options with the people who will be working with the offenders they are trying to rehabilitate,” said Chief Probation Officer Mack Jenkins.

Adult and juvenile offenders are referred using a web-based Community Resource Directory to these probation-approved providers as a way to help address and manage continuing issues in their lives that may have once led them down the wrong path.

“By building better communication and relationships with the community service providers, we can protect community safety and reduce crime,” said Jenkins.

Get a Taste of Success

Natasha Garcia prepares her Healthy Holiday Dessert Contest-winning recipe to be served at the COC cafeteria.

Irresistible smells often waft from Natasha Garcia’s kitchen.

Growing up, “there was always activity in the kitchen,” said the Planning & Development Services accounting technician. It was a warm spot where family members converged and cooked. As a college student, she interned one summer in a professional kitchen. In her own home now, she bakes fresh breads, and cooks dishes from scratch such as chicken pot pie and albondigas soup. Her family and friends are often drafted as taste testers.

On Wednesday, Garcia’s latest culinary creation will be available for County employees to sample. She recently won the County’s Healthy Holiday Dessert Recipe Contest with her preparation of a French dessert dish named pear-almond clafouti. The COC cafeteria will serve it starting at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The contest, in its second year, poses a challenge to employees: create a dessert that is both healthy and delicious.

Garcia was one of 65 employees to give it a try.

She brought her own creative flair to her clafouti dish, a baked dessert with fresh fruit and what Garcia described as a light, soufflé-like consistency. Garcia started with a recipe she found in a co-worker’s healthy cookbook, but tweaked it to make it even healthier and tastier.

Since the contest called for low-calorie desserts, Garcia made a few substitutions to lower the calorie count further. She used more egg whites and less egg, as well as more orange juice and less liqueur. She used pears instead of the apricots called for in the original recipe. And she decided against mangoes or persimmons, after making samples of each and getting feedback from friends, family and co-workers. The tasters liked the texture and flavor of the pear best.

The judges obviously agreed, selecting her creation in a final round last month that included the top five recipes from each County group. Other finalists prepared lemon angel cake, peach betty, gluten- free zucchini chocolate cake and flourless brownies. The five-judge panel, which included chefs from the COC cafeteria as well as a few County employees, selected her dish based on both presentation and taste.

COC Commons Food Service Director Javier Alamanza said Garcia’s dish had “good flavor.” Her presentation was also polished and professional.

What does Garcia think about the cafeteria serving her dish? It’s remarkable, she said.

As the winner, she spent time this week in the kitchen at the COC preparing her dish to serve. She peeled and poached the pears on Tuesday, and planned to return Wednesday morning to finish cooking the 60 servings planned.

William Erese, the County’s wellness coordinator, said he was extremely pleased with how the contest went this year and that there are plans to expand it in the future.

As contest winner, Garcia received a few prizes including an electric juicer, which she brought into work to share with her co-workers. She said winning felt like a “team effort.”

“They’ve shown a lot of support,” she said. “Especially when it came to tasting.”

Pear-Almond Clafouti Recipe (PDF)