Blog: Delaware

This month, the Comprehensive Strategy Group released a detailed report on the juvenile justice system in Delaware. Entitled “The Little Engine that Could,” the report focuses on Delaware’s impressive progress overhauling its treatment of youth offenders over the past four years despite the state’s limited resources. From the report:
“More specifically, the primary goal of the restructuring effort is to create a responsive rehabilitative system where youth receive supervision based on objective assessments of their risk to re-offend and the severity of their offense, and are also matched with services based on their needs. The reasonable expectation is that, by ensuring that youth at risk of further delinquency involvement receive needed services early on, [the state] will be able to reduce recidivism while building and promoting life skills and other protective factors which will increase youth success.”
Recognizing a Troubled System
About 10 years ago, Delaware officials noticed a troubling trend following House Bill 210’s adoption:

“The initial stimulus [for reform] was a backlash against House Bill (HB) 210, 'get tough' legislation enacted in 2003 that resulted in the transfer of a large number of juvenile offenders to the criminal justice system. This, in turn, inadvertently resulted in significant overcrowding of juvenile detention facilities while hearings to transfer many of these youth back to the Family Court were pending.”

A New Structure