DMC Technical Assistance Project

In 2004, to bolster California's efforts to reduce disproportionate minority contact (DMC) with the juvenile justice system, the Corrections Standards Authority (formerly the Board of Corrections) established a workgroup comprised of subject matter experts to help determine the most effective strategies for using federal funds to address DMC.

While acknowledging that DMC is an intensely local matter, the workgroup agreed that strong leadership at both the state and local levels is imperative when addressing this issue. The workgroup also agreed that California's efforts to address DMC must include two critical components: education and collaboration of community stakeholders (to include police, district attorneys, public defenders, probation, judges, and community-based organizations).

Based on the expertise of workgroup members and their review of lessons learned from other states involved in DMC projects, the workgroup recommended a three-pronged approach in using available federal dollars to address DMC: 1) develop and administer a Technical Assistance Project in counties committed and willing to address DMC; 2) contract with an expert consultant to work collaboratively with counties in the implementation and evaluation of the project; and 3) establish a full-time DMC coordinator position at the Corrections Standards Authority (CSA). The CSA subsequently adopted all three recommendations.

The Technical Assistance Project is based on a systems approach to DMC developed by CSA staff. To implement this project, the CSA developed and issued a Request for Proposals for an Expert Consultant and, as a result of this process, awarded $200,000 in available federal funds to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, which will work with CSA's DMC Coordinator on the project.

At the time this project began, three counties (Alameda, Contra Costa and Ventura) met the criteria for participation:

1. Preliminary data must indicate an overrepresentation issue in the target community.
2. Collaborative agreements between stakeholders must be in place (or planned).
3. The site must be reporting data through the California Department of Justice's Juvenile Courts Probation Statistical System.
4. The county must have a DMC workgroup established at the time of site selection.
5. The site must have baseline data collection tools available.

These counties will receive an array of technical assistance services from the expert consultant related to DMC education, stakeholder collaboration, organizational analysis, data collection, and action plan development, implementation, and evaluation.

The CSA's full-time DMC Coordinator is responsible for overseeing the Technical Assistance Project, which will include an evaluation of site-specific program interventions on the reduction of DMC as well as a "process evaluation" to assess the efficacy of the project itself.