D.

Gotlieb

00:02 OK, so it started. All right. Um, let me just so expression. Thanks. Sure. But, I mean,
maybe just a general question. Why don't you? I'm really interested in how you got
connected with C J. C. I think from talking with John. You've been really involved since the
beginning of C J. C, right? 

00:21 Yes. Yes. 

00:23 Maybe Just tell me your journey with that. Sure. So basically, I was. I was a juvenile
court judge, and I was assigned to get the presiding judge of juvenile court. Shortly after
that assignment happened. One of the probation officers, in fact, the juvenile probation
officer at the time, Phil Cater, contacted me, and I had some contact with fire to that. And he
said, There's a grant that is being sent out by the California Endowment. And

01:03  what happened was this?

01:06 This was in 2007 or 2008. Are Sarah Reyes, who was a local, say their assembly
person or senator, and so she was connected with the endowment at the time and linked up
with the Center for peacekeeping. At the time. It was Ron Clawson was kind of the guru of
everything And so I had a meeting with him, and at the time it was Jason AC who was also
associated with President Pacific time. And they had a Grant To attempt to implement
restorative justice practices in juvenile court. So we had a meeting with all the stakeholders
included Probation, the district attorney, public defender. Um, and there might have been a
couple of others involved as well. But those were the primary stakeholders involved, and we
had a lot of meetings to kind of half out what we wanted this to look like. Um, there were
times where we kind of hit a brick wall. And at the time, you know, this is going back now,
You know, over 10 years ago, and so restorative justice was really a whole new concept. It
had been implemented in any courts, really, or any schools. So it was a brand new idea,
and it looked to some as though it was soft on crime. And in that period of time, especially in
Fresno, soft on crime was not a good thing to be. I think you would still find that that if you
took a poll that would say, Oh, no, No, no. We have to be hard on crime. Tough on. So we
actually, interestingly enough, I think we changed the paradigm, too, you know, soft on
crime and tough on crime. It hard on too smart on crime. And I think with that paradigm shift
that made a lot of people kind of open their eyes to it. But that's a lot longer down the road.
So... 
03:29 We'll get to that point. You find a lot of collaboration. Different? 

03:35 Yes and no. 

03:35 Was it? 

03:38 It was really Jason X. He was kind of starting organizer and really ran the meetings.
Um, with a lot of good goals, a lot of input from everybody. It really was a collaborative
project. But some of the party's kind of came kicking and screaming along the way. So, for
example, the district attorney many times was just No, we don't want to do this. This is not
something that is within our priorities. Probation. Also, I think, had their doubts have real
doubts about whether it would be able to work. Phil Cater, who was the leader of that
organization of the time. I think I really felt that it was something that would work. I have
read a lot of information from crossing from others who had implemented in other states or
in Australia or New Zealand with a lot of success. So after 12 months of a lot of work, and
Jason X, you know, would have independent meetings with some of the state quarters,
particularly the district attorney when they wanted to pull out, um and honestly, there were
times where the district current said, You know what, judge? You could do this without us.
We don't need to be part of this. You can make orders in order that we do it on. You know?
Well, either participate or we won't. I said, but no, that's not how we're gonna do this. This is
gonna be something that we're all gonna own. If we don't all own it, It's not gonna work. So
12 months later, we opened up a new juvenile justice campus on American state of the AR.
Everything was geared toward rehabilitation. Courtrooms were designed in such a way to
be more open and allow for more space for interviews and a lot more space for
collaborative space. Just in general. 

05:47 I'm going over there later. 

05:48 Okay? good, so you'll see it now. It's 10 years older, but it still is a beautiful building,
and the way it was designed was to be more of a campus. So the detention facility that's
connected to it is much more like a campus. The building that we were housed in. Prior to
that, it was an old break. Does dilapidated. It was a horrible, horrible place, and the kids
were in basically lock boxes with bars. And then it was for so it's a huge improvement. And
with that improvement, in fact, when we did the grand opening on dedication, one of the
things that I said Speaker Was that with this new building, we're making a promise to our
kids to implement new methods of rehabilitation. So the first day that we were in that for my
fifth of 2009, uh, I sent my first case to C J. C. And part of the whole idea behind C. J. C.
Was to make it an integral part of the new building. So we had C. J. C have an office right
there. So when we told our kids about C. J. C and said, Okay, um as part of the program,
you're gonna go over and meet with C J C representative right after court, walk across the
hall and go there. And so you know, there was the idea, I think, ultimately for juvenile,
successful juvenile justice courts is to have everything under one umbrella where they can,
you know, if they need mental health help. There's a mental health technician or clinician
right there. If they need anger management. There's somebody there that you know, one
stop shop. So they're not. Not yet. Not yet. But they're working on some things, though. I
mean, they have right now. They have a court that's dedicated toward handling human
trafficking. For teams, they have a A drug court. They have a mental health court. And so a
lot of the clinicians, a lot of people that work in those feelings fields are right in that building.
So that was kind of the genesis of the program. There were a lot of leaders at the time in
various agencies that really helped move it along. And once we got some, you know, grass
under our feet, it just kind of took off. Not to say there were some bumps along the way. But
I think after a year, you know, we have started off thinking that, Okay? What? We're gonna
try and get 50 cases. I think the first year we got 163 or something along those lines, and I
just kept growing after about two or three years. Way had a a team from Berkeley. I don't
know if you've read the report. OK, So do report an independent evaluation on the program.
And when all those numbers came out and we saw, uh, the recidivism rate dropped from 25
to 5% way all said, wow really works, and only does it work for that, but the cost of it, it
reduced the cost. All of the partners increased restitution and the feelings of success were
shared amongst victims, most importantly, the kids as well other partners. That's kind of the
evolution of it.

09:54  involves a woman were involved. It's the judge. What's your almost five years, right?
How's your connection? Since I started, 

10:10 My connection with my connection in the last five years has definitely dropped off
significantly. However, uh, I have worked a lot with Tim Nightingale. Um, and say, uh, two.
Basically, be a proponent for it. Go to places that want to get information about it and give
talks about it. Presentations about it. Uh, when I was presiding, we went to a couple of other
countries. We went up to Sacramento and presentation their way. Did one ever said Way
spoke in front of the California Legislature. Um, all in an effort to have C J. C. Spread and
become more universal.
 
11:00 So how is your own personal views of justice? Have you always been a proponent of
restorative justice or how your views changed because of your participation? I think
definitely my views have evolved. I think, when I first started in, you know, in the juvenile
justice campus and handling those types of cases, um, my initial polls were that in 90% of
the cases, we need to do whatever we can to try and help these kids out, because they're at
an age where they could be held accountable and at the same time rehabilitated. I always
believed that to be the case, the other 10% and maybe it's not quite that much, but there's a
certain percentage that because of their history and because of their crimes, kind of the
community safety needs to kind of take a priority. It's a real small percentage. It really is.
But, you know, we have a lot of different options for what we do with kids. One of those, of
course, is a commitment to what used to be called the youth authority, now the Department
of Juvenile Justice And even, you know, I've done tours of that facility on even though
certainly it is a locked facility and it is off punishment. They do have a resource is available
and their evidence these programs. So 15 years ago, 20 years ago, I used to be again
horrible place to put kids and kids would come back usually much more damaged, much
harder. I don't think that's necessarily the keys anymore, but...so how is it involved. How
have my feelings of all they have definitely evolved and grown. The more I did restorative
justice, the more I became a proponent of it, a fan of it. Oh, on. I think it's unfortunately we
don't utilize it as much as we could a lot of reasons for that. But yeah, that's how I'm about
well, I think not only within the juvenile justice system, but also within the adult system. You
know, there have been some attempt To implemented a little bit more in the court. They
haven't come to fruition as they probably could. 

13:50 ~~~~~~~

14:06  I don't think there's that much perception about that anymore. I think that it's maybe
not as high a priority as It should be. It's hard to kind of pinpoint exactly what it is as to why
it hasn't become more popularized in either adult court or as a broader spectrum in juvenile
court. Maybe it's going to take again the same type of push and collaborative process on a
larger scale. To. Implement it. You know, I think that there have been some of the same
struggles with schools that when it's been implemented the correct way it really works. I
think some people are a little bit leery of it, afraid of it. You know, everybody is afraid of
change. In California, there has been huge changes in the last five years as to how we're
treating those that are committing crimes. And people are with shift. The mental shift is
taking hold, but it's taking hold slowly. I've seen

15:23  since Right right here, Right that way you talk about How did you swing for the
greatest strengths? 

16:02 And sure, you know, without you without getting into too many specifics of the case
there are often times where the kids come back and you can just tell in their eyes and their
expression that they've had, like, an awakening and even more so the parents, you know, I
remember having a parent coming to court after the C. J. C. Has been completed. Usually it
was about six months, sometimes a little bit longer, sometimes much shorter. Uh, and I just
remember the expression on some parents face is saying This is an amazing program. My
son learned more than he ever learned before in any type of past experiences where there
was punishment, he actually had to confront somebody that he hurt for a change. Um, and.
You know, he couldn't avoid it. Um, and he's a different person, and I say he because most
of the cases are male juvenile's, that air, You know, the majority. Um, we had a really big
case one of the early early cases. That was pretty serious. And it involved a burglary of a
bar and it was eight or nine Juvenile's that all broke into this bar on stole a lot of alcohol.
Um, and it's kind of an interesting story as to how they got caught. But suffice to say, they
all got caught. Um, and we have them come into court. We had to get a parties for them
because the public defender can only handle one. And so we brought in all these attorneys,
and so we had to get them to buy into the idea of restorative justice, which was a total
foreign concept to them. The District Attorney, interestingly enough, was one of the more
that particular district. I thought, Hey, this might really work. And then, on top of which the
victim who was actually disabled in a wheelchair, really wanted to see it work, and just a lot
of things came together into the perfect solution. So you have this tiny little town. Everybody
knows everybody. And one of the comments that he made it the beginning was, he says. I
know most of their parents they come and patronize my store so this really hurt me deeply
and I have to live with all of them. I definitely want to have a conversation. And so he kind of
drove it a little bit. Along with everybody else is cooperation. They had a  conference, a
community justice conference that had probably about 20 to 30 people, including pastors
from the church. Grandparent's A lot of these kids were football players, football coaches,
people from the school, and they all have their input. And so the solution was extraordinarily
creative. Some of the varsity football players were benched for a couple of games. You
know, someone

19:37  was having school coach there.

19:40  Yeah, yeah, high school coaches there, You know, there was community service
done there was clean up that was done at the bar, even around the bars, you know, to
make the community nicer. And so I just thought after that case, I was like, Oh, what would
we have done in that case, You know, as you know, our normal standardized type of
sentence and it would have looked completely different. And, um, we handled another case
that was a residential burglary action. And usually we didn't handle those for C J C because
they were more serious and they're labeled serious offenses. But it was a young man who,
uh, burglarized a neighborhood house. People were just moving in. They hadn't yet moved
in on, did some vandalism and stole some items. And so the one of the homeowners, it was
a woman was a homeowner. And she says, You know, I really am afraid to live in this
community. Now, I I just Well, I'm gonna have troubles and my child has nightmares. So we
went forward with it on After she spoke to this young man, it changed everything. And now
they could be neighbors, and he can go by and waved to her and, you know, help her out.
And now she feels safer. And so those air kind of some of the stories that kind of stick out in
my head there are a lot more to We had a kid that vandalized on auto a lot, and, um uh, he
was drunk and ran around jumping on the cars, causing substantial damage. And this poor
guy, you know, a small business on now he was shutting down his business and losing all
his money So, um, he ended up having this kid not only clean up, hired him for a short
period of time to do some work around there, and they ended up doing a little video in
support of C J. C. So those are just a few of the hundreds of stories

22:02  you're talking about responsibility directly preparing you, no harm done to the person
that right. So 

22:18 and, you know, there were occasions where we had again, primarily just returning,
and I don't mean to pick on them, but I get it. But they said, you know, Well, gosh, all we
have to do is say sorry. I said, Well, it's a lot more than that. It's a lot lot more than that. So
one of the district attorneys who charge of the office out of the juvenile court, uh, met on a
couple of occasions with Tim Nightingale, who took over after Jason Academy and, um,
economy took him through the entire process and have him sit in on some of it. And I think
after that he realized that even though on paper it looks like it's simple, it's not. It is really,
really not, And I've gone through the training a couple of times with Tim. Uh, it's much more
intensive than me as a judge telling somebody. Okay, do 10 hours of volunteer work do five
days on electronic monitor? And 

23:30 what do you think are keys to success? These programs that failed, not done right?
Those that are right.

23:38  So I think a really clear understanding before you get started off what's involved and
step by step, how it works, because kind of reading about it and doing it are two different
things, Uh, and so I think that it's really important for the people that are going to be
implementing it to get appropriate training ahead of time, uh, and sit in on actual
conferences. I think that's important. That would be kind of my main thing and have an open
mind about it because, you know, we can have changed that thrust upon us, and that
happens all the time in court is Legislature says, Hey, this is what you're going to do And
often time uh, we kind of ask among ourselves, Do they know what we do you know, on?
Because if they did, maybe they wouldn't implement. And so I think there needs to be
collaboration between the people that are trying to put the program in place on those
because then it doesn't feel as though, Oh, here we go again. They're telling us to do
something new that, You know, they're there. For example, teachers, teachers that have
been doing it a long, long time. They feel so Hey, what way have worked? Why don't we
need to change and I get it, Um, those of us who have been in a area of work for a long
time. There's a lot of reluctance to change something because we're comfortable with. But
we feel that it works. So...

25:29  what do you think this about restorative justice programme like does it needs to
evolve and change? 
25:34  Definitely.

25:37 And what is the most effective way to facilitate that change? 

25:47 And I think that we were really successful in doing that at the juvenile justice campus.
You know, when I left after five years, there were some people that were very concerned
that C. J. C was gonna go by the wayside that, you know, it took, you know, the leaders that
were originally implementing it to make it succeed. But part of what we wanted to do was
we really wanted to make it systemic change, and so That meant putting in place
procedures and policies and protocols that everybody knew and put him in writing, so that
when a new judge comes and somebody says, Oh, I think this is a good case for C J. C.
They can go to these policies and protocols and say, Oh, okay, I know what that is and also
it takes, you know, the people who were involved in the program to reach out to those new
leaders and say, Hey, you know what I want to tell you There's this program called C J C.
And it's been implemented successfully. And here's how it works, you know, get you some
training and that's what's been going on, you know, it's already traded hands 3, 4, 5 times
since I left on it is still growing strong. So I think that that's, you know, the people who are
program leaders involved in the trenches need to be aware of those leadership changes
and be willing to knock on doors and say, Hey, this is what we've done on I'm here for you if
you have to use our concerns and this is gonna really make things work better. 

27:31 what about the Weaknesses? What gaps do you see? How do you address those
gaps?

27:36  Yeah, I think that as leadership is changing in all areas, for example, we have kind of
a shift in our judges, for example, from those of us that have been around for 10 15 20
years, a lot of them are retiring, and we have new judges that are coming in that I think have
more familiarity with the restorative justice practices. And so, as they come in and they're
familiar with it, they'll be more willing, already have touched it, and so they'll have a greater
willingness to pick it up in terms of weaknesses, though again, I think it's just incumbent
upon those that are practicing it to continue to spread the word about it. And it's not easy
but to goto organizations, you know, public defenders, district attorney's probation officers
and say, Hey, you know what? We're gonna do a free training to make sure that you guys
were all up to speed on it. Um and then I think in order to advance it, it's probably gonna
take another convening type of situation, and I don't know that there needs to be new
money infused into it or not, but, um you know, I think, really that in order Thio taken
another level that maybe there needs to be a new convening have a group of people
leaders that I can take it up to the next four things. 

29:22 I want to ask you about five more minutes. Yet when's your cuts? I spoke with District
Attorney Tracy. 

29:37 Yeah, Yeah, right.

29:38  She mentioned that 

29:41 she was a great partner, by the way. 

 29:54 ~~~~~` the delay. 

30:15 You know, we set up the program initially with the idea of having the party's
comeback after eight weeks, which my mind is very quick because you are. It's an
organizational, you know, uh, matter on. You have people, primarily the kids, kids, families
that maybe have not worked on schedules in a while. You know, it's a lot of them have
some economic difficulties and other familial dysfunction that probably contributed to the
delinquency. So you have that that problem? Um, you know if we have probably 20 more
facilitators, things could be done a little bit quicker. I'm not as concerned about the delays
because, quite honestly, I think that when you realise, recognize all the hurdles, it's not that
you typically. And it might be that it's changed because I think Tracy's more in tune with how
it is now than when I did it. But I run a youth court, for example, out of Edison way. Try and
get our cases within, you know, 4 to 6 weeks right now. Yes. Yeah. So we have Casey on
right? Right? Yes, I worked with her quite a bit. And, uh, so that's how I keep connected is
through the youth court. It's a little bit different, but we do a lot of restorative justice practices
there. Um, so I'm not that concerned about the time delays. And then the other concern was
getting the family's invested. Um, it's tricky, you know. It's a It's a tricky concept. I don't
know if the court can play a bigger role in that, you know, telling them when the parents,
when the family comes, look this work, it's really imperative that you participate Oh, I don't
know. You know, the other thing is reminders. You know, I know that probation Juvenile's
does a real good job of sending the text messages. You know, uh, I have a daughter. Oh,
my gosh, He'll send me a text message the week before three days before two days. It's like
Marty, you know, And so maybe that's what it takes is that type of communication. You
know what the families is via text messaging? Because that's everybody does that. So
those yeah, yeah, and kids respond To...

33:06 Even in the office have text message groups, 

33:11  Exactly. Everybody's communicating that way. So maybe that's a step that I don't
know if C. J. C. Is currently using that or not, but that might be something. 

33:19 So any final thoughts about you see that you want to show him covered? 

33:26 Um, you know, again, I think it's a fantastic I think that, you know, in 10 years it's
come along right? It certainly could continue to grow. My hope is that, you know, another 10
years we have you know, the whole community kind of talking about it and saying what a
great program it is that evolved from you know, from president, Because really has no was
kind of leader. You know, we have the unfortunate designation of being kind of a home of
three strikes. I think that, you know, initially when that came out, everybody was like, Oh,
yes, we're the top of city and it yielded some real horrible result. So now to say, you know
what? Yeah, that was a long time ago. Now we're the home of restorative justice. I think that
would be great. Yeah. Redemption and a green designation for Yeah, 

34:29 Thank you. 

34:29 All right. And if you have any other questions or anything else, you know, I'm more
than happy to, you know, chap, you again.