After budget cuts, juvenile probation counselors struggle to keep up with youth crime surge

On a recent afternoon, a 15-year-old sat nervously in a courtroom at the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center in Seattle. After spending four months in detention, he was pleading guilty to a weapons charge and being released, with conditions, including weekly check-ins with his probation counselor and therapy to address his aggression issues.

That therapy “is one of his overriding needs right now,” the boy’s juvenile probation counselor stressed to the judge.

“The main thing — the most important — is that you do what your JPC tells you, because if you violate that, then you get in more trouble, and you don't want that. Okay?” the judge said.

“Yes, your honor,” the teen replied solemnly.

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In Washington state, every youth charged with a crime gets a juvenile probation counselor whose job is to figure out how they ended up in trouble — and how to keep them out of it.

In King County, juvenile probation counselors say they are buckling under the weight of unmanageable caseloads following recent budget cuts and an increase in serious youth crime.

Dan Baxter, a juvenile probation counselor for King County Superior Court, said the work feels so important that he's done it for nearly three decades.

“I believe that there’s hope for all of our kids,” Baxter said.

Part officer of the court, part social worker, probation counselors start by figuring out what youth are up against — like family problems, trouble in school, or gangs — and screening them for mental health problems and substance use disorder.

Baxter creates goals with each young person, then checks in with them at least weekly — as well as with the adults in their life, like caregivers and school staff — “making sure that they're staying out of trouble, and they're going to school, and they're doing what they need to do to have a successful education. It could be abstaining from drugs and alcohol. It could be attending their counseling sessions,” he said.

Juggling calls, family visits, and daily court hearings is only manageable with caseloads no higher than 20 for most juvenile probation counselors, Baxter said. Instead, they can now be assigned 26 kids or more at a time.

Compounding the problem, Baxter said, while he and his colleagues used to handle a wide range of cases, today most of their young clients face serious felony charges, and their needs are complex.

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“When you're dealing with a caseload size of almost 30, and most of those kids are high-risk, it just does not allow for the time to actually do the work properly,” Baxter said.

That can mean spending half an hour talking to a young person instead of the two hours he used to be able to spend, and less time to help kids and families with support like stable housing.

Court staff say the caseloads ballooned after the county created a new program in 2021 meant to keep more young people out of the court system. It sent kids accused of first-time misdemeanors and lower-level felonies to community groups for intervention, rather than to diversion overseen by the court and probation counselors.

The county cut 17 juvenile probation counselor positions to fund the Restorative Community Pathways program with the expectation that it would lower probation caseloads.

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Then youth crime rose dramatically, including serious, violent crime. The county's juvenile felony filing and diversion rate is now 17% higher than in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Four years ago, King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci supported shifting $1.4 million from juvenile probation counselors to community-based diversion.

Today, Balducci says that may need to be reevaluated.

“You know, the tradeoffs were made a few years ago with the idea that we would shift caseload. If that's not working out, then we have to revisit that,” Balducci said. “We should not be afraid to revisit decisions that we've made if they're not working.”

Balducci, who formerly headed Adult and Juvenile Detention, said it’s vital that probation is fully staffed. She’s waiting to see what is in King County Executive Dow Constantine’s budget proposal next week.

Constantine’s spokesperson Amy Enbysk said only that the executive “is considering adding positions to the juvenile justice system.”

“King County is committed to partnering with community, local agencies, and community-based organizations to support youth wellbeing through restorative justice alternatives to the juvenile legal system, a system that is harmful and punitive,” Enbysk said by email.

Chief Juvenile Court Judge Veronica Galván said she considers probation counselors the hub in the juvenile justice system, coordinating clinical care and community services for youth and their families, and letting judges know how the young person is doing. Galván said she now sees those probation counselors struggling to keep up.

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“We're reaching a point where we don't know what to do. We still have to provide those services. But the outcomes would be better if we had the resources to provide them at the level that they are so desperately needed,” Galván said.

The county Juvenile Court Services division is asking for eight more probation counselors to meet young people’s needs — especially with 56% more kids in detention than before the pandemic.

“We need to invest in the youth right now,” Galván said. “The ones that need the most resources are the ones in detention, right? And if we don't have the resources to get that work done, I worry that our detention numbers aren't going to be going down, given what we're seeing.”