‘I have a different lens’: New Santa Clara County probation chief draws on East San Jose roots

For Nick Birchard, working from the ground up comes naturally.

After graduating in the early 1990s from San Jose State University with a psychology degree, he immediately got to work at Santa Clara County’s probation department, taking on the all-important work of counseling at juvenile facilities.

Nearly three decades later, his career come full circle. Starting Monday, he’ll take over a department that has transformed itself into a trailblazer in innovative criminal justice reform methods under outgoing Chief Probation Officer Laura Garnette. And Birchard pledges to carry on that legacy.

“Working with folks who are underserved, who ended up in the justice system, has always been kind of a calling for me,” said Birchard in an interview. “And being able to provide services to help rehabilitate has always been my focus.”

He also brings to the job a unique insight into the communities that need the department’s reforms most. A native of East San Jose, Birchard attended school within the Alum Rock and Eastside Union school districts. Part of the area — which became a magnet for Mexican laborers in the 1920s after work in the quicksilver mines of the Almaden neighborhood dried up — garnered the nickname “Sal Si Puedes,” Spanish for “Get out if you can,” because of its problems with crime, poverty and underdevelopment. The area is also close to where Cesar Chavez called home before establishing the United Farm Workers labor union.

The issues that East San Jose faces today existed while he lived there as well, said Birchard.

“Having grown up in those areas, I understand what poverty is,” he said. “I understand not having enough resources, and the impact that has on families and the community. So bringing that lens with me, as I’ve worked my way through the probation department, it’s always been to me about serving the community, and how do we serve those areas that are under-resourced the best?”

Birchard’s office, which oversees both adults and juveniles, has under 6,000 individuals in its probation system. Its duties include serving as an alternative to incarceration by supervising individuals who have been convicted or pleaded guilty to a crime. In addition, it oversees two youth facilities that combined hold 80 boys and girls.

That last number — a total of 56 youth at Juvenile Hall in San Jose and 24 at William F. James Ranch in Morgan Hill as of mid-January — is an accomplishment in itself, said Birchard.

Ten years ago, their populations were as high as 350. The reduction has come from a variety of different initiatives Birchard and others in the county have collaborated on, including an effort starting in 2015 that aimed to get the number of girls being held in its detention facilities to zero. It now floats between zero and low single digits at any given time, Birchard said.

“It worked,” he said. “And they’re now taking these efforts and trying to expand that across the state of California.”

In the coming years, these hard-won low numbers will likely rise—and, surprisingly, he hopes they will.

That’ because Birchard and the department have been preparing for a state bill that is eventually set to bring boys and girls who would have normally been sent to state-run facilities back home to Santa Clara County. By closing the physical distance, explained Birchard, youth are closer to important resources like family and community visits, a phenomenon he said leads to lower recidivism rates and a smoother transition back to normal life.

Senate Bill 823, known as the State Juvenile Realignment, is set to bring back 12 boys and girls to the county in the next six months, according to Birchard.

“They’ll be connected to their community, their family, and they won’t be sent to a location where that connection will no longer take place,” he said.

It’s emblematic of a wider goal Birchard has as he takes over the department this month: Making sure his clients don’t get lost in the criminal justice system.

“If you don’t make long-lasting, systemic changes, communities will continue to suffer,” he said. “How do we put things in place to make sure that that doesn’t happen?”