Another line item getting nixed in Jerry Brown's proposed budget is the state's Division of Juvenile Justice, potentially saving the state some $242 million but potentially costing some pain at the county level, where the worst offending juvenile inmates will now have to be sent. Some feel counties can and should do a better job rehabilitating juveniles, given that the state system is broken, with just four broken down buildings, and afflicted with an entrenched gang culture.

Dan Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a nonprofit group in San Francisco, calls the state's juvenile facilities "relics of the 19th century," and agrees that counties should be doing more. As it is, judges have had an unofficial policy of keeping all but the worst offenders closer to home and out of the state's dilapidated facillties, with the state's juvenile inmate population shrinking from 10,000 in 1996 to 1,300 currently. So is Brown just speeding along the inevitable, or will local facilities suddenly be given responsibilities they can't handle for some scary ass kids?

Down in Santa Clara County, a supervisor and a Juvenile Court judge are taking the initiative already, trying to raise the minimum age for entry into Juvenile Hall to 16 from 12, and to create a "separate pathway" for juvenile offenders into community treatment centers.