Rethinking Juvenile Justice Policies

Youth violence reached a peak more than 20 years ago. In response, legislatures passed laws at the time allowing more young offenders to be tried as adults.

However, violent crime arrest rates decreased for all age groups between 1994 and 2010, and more so for juveniles than for adults. The rates dropped an average of 54 percent for teenagers ages 15 to 17, compared to 38 percent for those between 18 and 39.

Although the arrest rates were higher in 2010 than in 1980 for those over 24, the rates for juveniles ages 15 to 17 has steadily decreased over time.

Recent brain and behavioral science research, furthermore, has revealed new insights on how brain development shapes adolescents' behavior that has helped play a role in policy changes around the country.

According to the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, teens' brains do not fully develop until about age 25. Social science and behavioral sciences show, moreover, that teens focus on short-term gains rather than long-term consequences of their actions and more likely to engage in immature, emotional, risky, aggressive and impulsive behavior - including delinquent acts.

"It doesn't mean adolescents can't make rational decisions or appreciate the difference between right and wrong," said Dr. David Fassler, a psychiatry professor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, who testified before legislative committees on brain development. "But it does mean that, particularly when confronted with stressful or emotional circumstances, they are more likely to act impulsively, on instinct, without fully understanding or considering the consequences of their actions."

Violence toward others usually peaks in adolescence, usually beginning around age 16, said Emory University psychiatrist Peter Ash. If a teenager has not committed a violent crime by age 19, they are unlikely to become violent later, and 66 percent to 75 percent of violent young people grow out of it, Ash explained.

In light of the research, Legislatures across the country are working on revising their juvenile justice policies - increasing the age at which teenagers can be tried as adults; protecting the confidentiality of juvenile records for future educational and employment opportunities; increasing due process protections for young offenders; and enacting laws to determine competency of juvenile offenders to stand trial.

At least 16 states now address competency specifically in statute. The new policies focus on providing more effective evaluations and interventions, including proper screening, assessment and treatment services for youth offenders. Some states provide special mental health courts to ensure intensive case management for these individuals as well.

Many states have passed comprehensive juvenile mental health reform laws, and programs which include families in the treatments of young offenders are now being used in at least 10 states.

States are also working to shorten the time juveniles are confined in detention centers, usually while waiting for a court appearance or disposition, and are working to address the safety challenges within these facilities.

In 2006, for example, Texas passed laws in response to reports of physical and sexual abuse by staff at juvenile detention facilities. The Legislature created the Independent Ombudsman's office to investigate and review allegations of misconduct, required monitoring of detention facilities with cameras and on-site officials, and barred juveniles from serving time in detention facilities for committing misdemeanors. The state has since closed nine facilities; from 2008 to 2011, verified complaints of abuse have dropped 69.5 percent.

However, safety is still a major concern. The Independent Ombudsman, in fact, reported incidents of youth-on-youth violence in the state's largest detention facility just last year. Executive Director Mike Griffiths stated that "there needs to be a foundation of safety and security to be effective. We are light years ahead of where we were in 2007, and the success of the community-based programs is encouraging, but safety needs to be a continued focus."

Many states are also looking at policies that divert young offenders from correctional facilities and into community programs. According to the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, incarceration is more costly and ineffective at keeping delinquent juveniles from committing more serious crimes and re-entering the system. Researchers suggest investing in more cost-effective, and often more successful, community programs instead.

RECLAIM Ohio is one such program that has reduced juvenile commitments to detention facilities and cut down on the number of young people re-entering the justice system. On top of this, the cost of housing 10 young people in a Department of Youth Services' facility is $571,940 a year, compared to $85,390 a year for RECLAIM Ohio programs.

Illinois lawmakers also created the program Redeploy Illinois in 2004, which encourages their counties to develop community programs for juveniles rather than confine them in state correctional facilities.

The program gives counties financial support to provide services in their home communities to delinquent youths who might otherwise be sent to the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice. This program has been so successful, in fact, that it is expanding statewide and is becoming a model for other states.

"Getting kids out of the correctional centers and treated in the community is obviously the best practice," says Georgia Representative Wendell Willard. "You have to close these large infrastructures and the overhead that goes with it, so you can redirect that money to treating youth in the community. When you go about such an exercise in your own communities, you will accomplish the goal of saving money."

Texas lawmakers passed laws in 2009 that strengthened support and funding for local and county programs that monitored juveniles closer to their homes.

And it appears to be making a difference. The number of juveniles in Texas detention facilities dropped from nearly 5,000 in 2006 to around 1,200 in 2012.

Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court have also reshaped juvenile justice policies. The court abolished the death penalty for juveniles in 2005 in Roper v. Simmons, citing MacArthur Research Network findings that adolescents can be less culpable than adults for their crimes. And in 2010 it ruled in Graham v. Florida to end life sentences without parole for crimes other than homicide committed by juveniles.

Last summer, in Miller v. Alabama, the court ruled that imposing mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment of cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that juveniles have less culpability and thus, are "less deserving of the most severe punishments."

The Court went on to state in its ruling that life without parole for juveniles is especially harsh because it removes all hope. It makes it so "that good behavior and character improvement are immaterial. When compared with the reality that juveniles are more likely to change than are adults, juveniles who have demonstrated substantial improvement should be given the opportunity for parole."

"It's time to bring the juvenile code back to current times and find methods that work by looking at best practices nationally," Georgia's Willard stated, who is currently working on revising his state's juvenile justice code. "We need to incorporate key items, such as instruments to assess risks, and put interventions in place within communities for young people involved in the system."

Source by Janel N Spencer