David Koch Moves to San Francisco Adult Probation

David Koch, who over­saw the nation­al­ly respect­ed sys­tem reforms in Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty, Ore­gon, took over as chief deputy adult pro­ba­tion offi­cer for San Francisco’s Adult Pro­ba­tion Depart­ment in June 2011.

Before mov­ing to San Francisco’s pro­ba­tion depart­ment, Koch served 10 years as direc­tor of the Juve­nile Ser­vices Divi­sion for the Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Jus­tice. ​“I miss being part of the JDAI fam­i­ly, but fond mem­o­ries live on, and oppor­tu­ni­ties for sys­tem reform are man­i­fold in adult pro­ba­tion,” Koch said. ​“Besides, if I need a quick dose of JDAI, I’ll trav­el down to San­ta Cruz and vis­it Scott Mac­Don­ald or stop by to see Bill Sif­fer­man in my new hometown.”

Koch left Mult­nom­ah hav­ing been part of a trans­for­ma­tion in which the coun­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced its deten­tion pop­u­la­tion by 80 per­cent and employed inno­v­a­tive strate­gies to reduce racial dis­par­i­ties. Some of his most favorite accom­plish­ments were tak­ing over food prepa­ra­tion at deten­tion and cre­at­ing a culi­nary pro­gram, estab­lish­ing an art pro­gram, plant­i­ng veg­etable gar­dens on the grounds of the juve­nile jus­tice com­plex, and imple­ment­ing evi­dence-based prac­tices in the division.

Koch’s cur­rent posi­tion puts him in charge of all agency oper­a­tions, pro­gram devel­op­ment and pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion, as well as imple­ment­ing California’s land­mark ​“Pub­lic Safe­ty Realign­ment” leg­is­la­tion. Over a 30-year-plus career, he has also man­aged a num­ber of adult com­mu­ni­ty cor­rec­tions agen­cies in Ore­gon and been pres­i­dent of the Ore­gon Juve­nile Depart­ment Direc­tors Asso­ci­a­tion and the Ore­gon Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty Cor­rec­tions Directors. 

He has lec­tured exten­sive­ly on juve­nile jus­tice reforms, made pre­sen­ta­tions as part of a del­e­ga­tion to Rus­sia, and served as an adjunct pro­fes­sor in crim­i­nol­o­gy at Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty. Koch holds a grad­u­ate degree in jus­tice man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da, Reno, and a bachelor’s degree in crim­i­nol­o­gy from South­ern Ore­gon University.