Juvenile Justice Reform

One challenge in almost every policy discussion is how to make the numbers mean something. So, let’s hope these numbers mean something. The annual cost to fully incarcerate someone in Georgia’s juvenile detention system is $98,000 per bed, more than five times greater than adult prison system per person costs. On the other hand, the state share is about $4,300 per pupil in the K-12 public school system. One is an investment in the future. The other is simply shocking.
“Where is that money going? Where is that $98,000?” That question – asked rhetorically – was among several posed this week when the newly reconstituted Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform held its first meeting to consider a vast rewrite of the state juvenile code. The Council retained all 13 members whose work helped to craft ideas for this year’s adult criminal justice system reforms, and it added eight new members, several with juvenile code expertise.
The Council is also expected to consider some unfinished business from the 2012 adult system reforms; in particular, more work on earned compliance credits, mandatory minimum safety valve sentencing ideas, and possible decriminalization of some traffic offenses. But make no mistake about it; the main course on this year’s menu will be juvenile justice reform.

Editor's note: This story is part of a 10-part investigative series: Lessening the impact of incarceration in Oakland.
Judge Gloria Rhynes leveled with the young Oakland mother whose third grader had missed two months of school.
"Did you know, the California Department of Corrections looks at who is absent in the third grade to figure out how many prison cells they are going to need when those children are adults?" Judge Rhynes, an Alameda County Superior Court judge, asked her as the mother’s case was heard in Truancy Court one morning in early May.
"The correlation is that strong," between missing school in the elementary years and winding up in jail, she said, between not learning third grade skills of reading and multiplication to falling so far behind in middle school that by high school the student drops out, the Judge continued. "I just convicted a 19-year old to 30 years to life. Do you think he had an education? Heck no."
Two out of three kids who drop out of Oakland public schools come into contact with the criminal justice system, according to an Oakland Unified School District report. And the dropout rate is 37 percent among Oakland public high school students. In some of Oakland's poorest neighborhoods, more than half of high school students do not graduate.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Juvenile Justice: They're Just Kids (Hartford Courant)
  Teenagers under age 18 who are charged with misdemeanors can no longer be tried as adults in Connecticut. This overdue new law reflects a more nuanced societal understanding of adolescent development and psychology.
• Gov. Deal Wants Review of Juvenile Justice System (The Augusta Chronicle)
  Gov. Nathan Deal urged judges, prosecutors, sheriffs and legislators serving on a criminal-justice reform commission Monday to consider every part of the juvenile justice system for overhaul.
• CT Law Treating 17-Year-Olds as Children in Court Goes Into Effect (EastHampton-PortlandPatch)
  From now on, 17-year-olds arrested for non-felony crimes will be able to take advantage of more state rehabilitation programs rather than jail.
• Opinion: N.J. Sets a Progressive Example for Juvenile Justice Reform (NJ.com)
  "As a juvenile justice advocate and student of legal history, it appears to me that the court’s holding seems obvious, but juvenile law reform has not gone far enough. The same rationale differentiating youth from adults when considering the harshest sentences also underpins other compelling legal questions," says Matthew M. House.
• New Law Channeling Older Teens Into Juvenile Court (Hartford Courant)
  New "raise the age'' legislation introduced 17-year-olds into the juvenile court system for the first time on July 1, and by Tuesday, there were 25 of the older kids sitting in detention centers across the state.

Over the last 20 years, numerous studies have confirmed that children who experience maltreatment are more likely to be referred/arrested for delinquent offenses. Maltreated children have also been found to more likely become involved in the adult criminal justice system. In fact, a 2004 National Institute of Justice study found maltreated children to be 11 times more likely than a matched control group to be arrested, and 2.7 times more likely to be arrested as an adult.
In 2011, the California Senate Office of Research released findings about the foster care experiences of California prison inmates who were scheduled to be paroled within eight months of June 2008. This research found that of the 2,549 polled inmates, 316 men and 40 women (14%) had been in foster care sometime during their youth and half of this percentage had been placed in group homes.
As a result of these studies, several child protective service (CPS) agencies, including the Department of Children and Family Services in Los Angeles County (LA), have joined forces with their counterparts in the juvenile justice system to collaboratively service youth who were concurrently involved in both of these systems. These youth are commonly referred to as “crossover” youth. While LA was observing some initial positive outcomes from these teaming efforts, two leaders [1] involved in the effort wondered if it was possible through research to identify which of the maltreated children were the most likely to become delinquent. If this was possible, then perhaps new practices could be adopted to prevent these youth from becoming delinquent, thereby increasing the likelihood that these most at-risk youth would become productive adults versus adult criminals.

To what should Milwaukee County attribute its declining adult and juvenile detention population? This question took shape in a research brief published a year ago by the Public Policy Forum, entitled “Milwaukee County Detainee Populations at Historic Lows: Why is it happening and what does it mean?” In that report, the Forum urged county law enforcement officials and policymakers to consider whether justice system policies that may have contributed to the decline were effective and should be sustained.
Milwaukee County’s Delinquency and Court Services Division (DCSD) asked the Forum to help in making that assessment for the array of services it offers to youth in the juvenile justice system. Success in curbing repeat delinquent behavior can have impacts into adulthood, making the juvenile justice system one critical piece in efforts to control crime and its related costs.
The most common way to assess the success of juvenile delinquency programming is to measure the extent to which participants commit additional crimes, otherwise known as recidivism. However, the best approach to defining a recidivistic event is not always clear cut, with many variations seen nationally.
The Forum’s newest research brief reviews the manner in which DCSD defines recidivism and its progress in reducing it. The following points summarize our findings:

A report released on National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day details the extent to which traumatic events impact children and young people involved in the juvenile justice system. In addition, the report points out the importance of children and teens developing close relationships with caring adults soon after entering the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.
"Promoting Recovery and Resilience for Children and Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems,” examines the positive impact that the Children's Mental Health Initiative (CMHI) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCTSI) has had with children and youth by creating a “trauma-informed workforce.” Trauma-informed workplaces collaborate “to develop, implement, [and] evaluate effective trauma treatment and services. In addition, [they partner] with other community agencies to promote service delivery approaches so that trauma services are effectively implemented within local child-serving community service systems.”
Despite the fact that it’s possible for some young people to experience traumatic events and come out virtually unscathed, studies show that victimization can often lead to life changing consequences and result in a multitude of issues later in life. According to an NCTSN study, children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events are at increased risk of being arrested in the future. In some cases, young adults who have experienced traumatic events are as much as five times more likely to go through the juvenile justice system.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Bradley County: Juvenile Court, Schools Join to Help Families (TimesFreePress.com)
  From campus courts to an elementary-level class at the county's Juvenile Justice Center, the goal is to keep kids from growing up and entering the adult justice system, officials said Tuesday.
• Juveniles In Court: New Chief Judge Relies On 'Holistic' Nursing Approach (Hartford Courant)
  Appointed last month as Connecticut's chief administrative judge of juvenile matters, Wolven, whose five-year term will begin in September, said she sees the courts taking the same [holistic] approach when it comes to juvenile offenders.
• Making an Impression in the Courtroom (JuvenileJusticeBlog.web.unc.edu)
  The senior administrative support specialist in the Pima County Public Defender’s Office maintains a clothes closet for defendants. Inside are more than 60 pairs of men’s and women’s shoes and dozens of slacks, blouses, dress shirts, suit coats and ties. [Vicki Broom] goes to the jail every week to measure defendants heading for trial. If she’s lucky, she’ll be able to find enough outfits to mix and match for the entire trial.

The Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice recently released a comprehensive report that discusses state juvenile justice reforms. “Pioneers of Youth Justice Reform: Achieving System Change Using Resolution, Reinvestment and Realignment Strategies” explores various reform initiatives that have reduced each state’s reliance on confinement facilities for youth.
The Problem
Imprisonment is a costly punishment for adults and juveniles, both monetarily and in terms of its impact on recidivism. Incarceration currently is a multi-billion dollar industry and typically accounts for a majority of state criminal justice budget expenditures. Given the current economic recession, the need for state officials to explore mechanisms for reducing expenses is greater than ever. Equally as important, incarceration is associated with an increased likelihood of reoffending. Statistics indicate that two-thirds of inmates will be arrested within three years of their release from prison. The destructive consequences of incarceration have led some states to look into alternatives to incarceration, especially for court-involved youth.
Reform Strategies

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Youth Court: Students Dispense Justice to First-Time Juvenile Offenders (Tulsa World)
  In the Youth Court program, student volunteers serve as the prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and bailiffs on cases involving first-time nonviolent juvenile offenders. The program operates in courts in Tulsa, Owasso and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
• Juvenile Justice: Courts Turn Focus to Rehabilitation (CoshoctonTribune.com)
  In Coshocton, many first-time juvenile offenders are placed in a diversion program rather than having an official complaint filed right away. If a juvenile is caught stealing, for example, his diversion program might include a theft-specific counseling program along with a special class for him and his parents.
• Juvenile Crime Dips in Iowa (KCRG.com)
  Juvenile crime is down in Iowa and officials are crediting research and justice system alternatives. Earlier this week, the Iowa Department of Human Rights’ Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning released a report, showing a more than 20 percent decrease in juvenile arrests between 2007 and 2010. Juveniles also made up a decreasing percentage of the state’s total arrests during those years.
• The Unfair Criminalization of Gay and Transgender Youth (Center for American Progress)
  Though gay and transgender youth represent just 5 percent to 7 percent of the nation’s overall youth population, they compose 13 to 15 percent of those currently in the juvenile justice system. These high rates of involvement in the juvenile justice system are a result of gay and transgender youth abandonment by their families and communities, and victimization in their schools—sad realities that place this group of young people at a heightened risk of entering the school-to-prison pipeline.

In Snohomish County, Washington, troubled teens attend music classes and transform from "youth offenders" to "musicians." This is part of a partnership between the Snohomish County Music Project and Reclaiming Futures Snohomish County.
The Music Project is a nonprofit organization that came into being after the Everetty Symphony fell on hard times. The Symphony board decided to change its mission from an arts organization to a human service organization with music-therapy programs.
From the Daily Herald: