SAN FRANCISCO'S JUVENILE Probation Department is melting down, and Mayor Gavin Newsom needs to take action immediately to prevent a major disaster.

As A.C. Thompson and Matthew Hirsch have reported in the past two weeks, the department is mired in problems, from contract issues to personnel management issues to outrageous abuse (like a probation officer boarding his personal horses at a facility designed to help deeply troubled kids). The head of the agency has stepped down amid the deepening scandal. And the commission that oversees the department and its $30 million budget has been, at best, asleep at the switch.

Meanwhile, those the agency is meant to serve – some 3,000 young people a year who are in trouble with the law – are the real victims. They aren't getting the education, counseling, treatment, and help they need to get out of the legal system while they still can.

The first thing that's needed is a full and credible investigation of the department's spending and policies, and the City Attorney's Office ought to open one immediately. But Newsom should pay some attention here too – he says he's alarmed by the growing violence on the streets, and the roots of that are often found right in the juvenile justice system, where kids, who can either turn their lives around or become hard-core criminals and killers, first encounter the world of law enforcement. Newsom ought to decide what sort of person he wants to see run this system and start a national search.