WHY DETENTION REFORM?

With the alarming increase of juvenile delinquency between 1987 and 1993, many states enacted "get tough" legislation in an attempt to combat this increase in delinquency, including "waiver" provisions that allowed youths to be treated as adults if charged with a violent felony offense.  This "get tough" perspective appeared to pervade the juvenile justice system across America as children were detained at an alarming rate, and for offenses that we would not consider arresting an adult.  For example, between 1985 and 1995, the daily population of children securely held in detention facilities in the United States increased approximately 61%, according to research by David Steinhart. ("Planning for Juvenile Detention Reforms," Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform, Annie E. Casey Foundation, p.5).  He also found that in 1995, 34% of the youths in detention on a single day were being held for status offenses and technical violations of probation; by contrast, 29% were detained for violent offenses and 37% for property offenses.  The body of research reveals that intermingling of lower risk youth with high risk youth increases the chance of low risk youth re-offending; not to mention the emotional trauma and abuse a youth must endure being housed alongside a violent offender.  Detention reform begs those of us in the juvenile justice profession to ask what are we doing to objectively assess which youth need to be detained?...... Are we locking up kids merely because they angered an adult? ........Is there a disproportionate number of minority youth detained in the community?..........What have we done to find alternative programs for low and medium risk youth to divert from detention and maintain public safety?...........or what if one of our own children made a poor decision and was charged on an offense.......Would this change our level of comfort about the system and how our respective child would be treated?  And there are more questions that arise from a detention reform approach that begs us to look at all aspects of how we treat children and youth who come in contact with the police and the courts.  

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Detention Alternatives within the juvenile justice context is not a new concept, but in fact was the basis for creating the juvenile court in Chicago.  Historically, a group of citizens of Cook County in 1899 were concerned about the treatment of youth in the adult criminal justice system.  Using the philosophy, which is now a medical fact that youth are not fully developed emotionally and pyschologically, that adolescents can still be rehabilitated and therefore should be treated differently than adults, these citizens called for the creation of a juvenile court.  Ironically, this group found an ally in prosecutors who were having difficulty in securing convictions of youth by juries in adult court, especially as these judges and juries saw these kids standing next to adults and feeling concern for the situation of these youth.   With the increase of juvenile violent crime publicized in the late eighties and during the nineties coupled with the murderous assault by two students at Columbine High, many States modified their juvenile justice system to create tougher laws for youth who commit violent crimes.  A number of States created what has become known as automatic transfer laws where youth who commit a capital offense who serious violent crime are treated as adult defendants.  These States and most others already possessed laws allowing for transfer of these type cases when petitioned by the prosecutor and after a pre-trial hearing the Juvenile Court found sufficient grounds to transfer the case to adult court.  Needless to say, the automatic transfer laws inferred that society, by and through state legislatures, no longer had faith in the juvenile courts to make these decisions and much less to treat such violent cases.  Georgia was no exception with the passage of the Seven Deadly Sins and Designated Felony statutes in 1994.  But these laws were implemented, as many laws are, in a knee jerk reaction, without much forethought, and grounded mostly in anecdotal evidence and not empirical.  With passing time, it is becoming more evident that these so called "tougher laws" are tough on the child, but not so tough in reducing recidivism or in securing community safety.  For example, a Rand Corp. study conducted of the Pennsylvania automatic transfer laws reveals more youth waiting for longer periods in jail before going to trial and sentencing, which in the juvenile system the youth would have been adjudicated and receiving treatment within a fraction of time it takes to go through the adult system.  Also, the adult system itself is fraught with problems that include overburdened court dockets and a system that allows for negotiated pleas to move a case along without real consideration what is in the best interest of the youth and the community.  Thus, cases were dismissed or dead docketed due to overwhelming dockets; cases that would most likely result in treatment for the youth if handled in juvenile court.  Other cases were probated as part of a negotiated plea to move the case along, and into a system of probation designed for adults that seek more their punishment than treatment for purposes of rehabilitation.  This is not to say that the juvenile justice systems across this nation are not without their respective problems, but the tough question is why totally abandon a juvenile justice system to treat youth who have committed violent acts for a system that is less equipped for such treatment and certainly riddled with its own problems that result in the release of violent offenders back into the community without consideration of meaningful treatment.  This is evidenced in part by attorneys representing youth in Georgia subject to incarceration for up to five (5) years requesting the case be transferred to adult court knowing they can get the case negotiated to adult probation and released back to the community, and avoid restrictive custody for purposes of intensive treatment.  Although Georgia law does not allow for the defense to request such a transfer, a number of attorneys out of ignorance still request it, and thus revealing the true state of affairs.