Stop that revolving door

Crime rates have dropped and arrest rates have fallen. There has been a change in the administration, and there is the financial crisis. But one thing has resisted change in the United States: the high rates of re-offending among teenagers and young adults. The recidivism rate is high. By any measure, 75% to 85% of young offenders are rearrested within the first three years of release from prison.

So when the California state government recently announced it was moving young offenders out of large state detention facilities into county institutions and encouraging alternatives to detention, it seemed that change was happening, and moving from theory to practice in juvenile justice in the United States.

According to Yumari Martínez, Associate Director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Center for Youth Justice, the change announced for young offenders in California is part of a larger picture true across the United States:

"There are similar things happening across the country, if you look at it and compare it o the last two decades. When criminal justice first began for juveniles, it was mostly based on rehabilitation, an opportunity to correct behavior. In the 80s and 90s the juvenile justice system shifted to a more punitive stance, the notion of the super-predator arose and public security became this huge concern.”

Brains only fully developed at 20

Yumari Martínez recently took part in a New York State Task Force for Transforming Juvenile Justice, with a report expected to come out this November. Part of this change in policy in his view, considers young offenders as potential subjects of behavior modification.

"Over the last decade now, and definitely the last five years, there has been a shift, the general sense that there is more knowledge available", said Martínez, noting the progress in the science of brain development, especially in youth and how that affects their appreciation of consequences in actions, and behavior.

"In our criminal system, like in most legal systems, there are two dimensions to crime, whether you are actually guilty of having committed a crime, and mental culpability, that affects the intention to commit a crime. The fact is, that the cut off is not at age seven, a brain does not fully develop until you reach way past teenage years, at 20."

Exposure to incarceration increases crime

This shift in the direction of juvenile justice policy has also resulted in radical change to the numbers of young offenders in incarceration facilities. Out of the 12 thousand youths incarcerated in state detention facilities in California three years ago, there are only about two thousand in these facilities today.

“The state of California has 58 counties and, since each county has their own juvenile justice system, it varies how youths are handled locally,” said Chief of Probation Officer for the County of Santa Cruz Scott MacDonald, who pointed out that in Santa Cruz they were able to have a 65% reduction in youths detained in juvenile hall, in other words, of those youths living in and sleeping in jails.

Although there are local organizations holding youths in detention, the new thinking on recidivism is to de-emphasize incarceration, removing youths from prisons. Youths are instead engaged in monitored activities that demand their participation and open doors back into the lives of their communities. And, following the same logic, authorities are pressed to reach out  to those who make life in the community possible to young offenders, which means offering resources to families and communities.

"Incarceration is overused. There is a tendency to think that incarceration is a good way to reduce crime, but growing research indicates that exposure to incarceration increases crime,” said MacDonald. He notes that in California, about 100 jurisdictions have signed up with the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative that belongs to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Not in jails, enrolled in monitored and demanding but ultimately less costly services

Detention centers are expensive by nature, to build, to run, to maintain, and there is the cost of maintaining the individuals locked up. For juvenile justice, it is also especially problematic that prisons have been compared to revolving doors. Kids barely out soon find themselves back to the justice system.

“And in these fiscal times, services cost less on average than institutionalization, if you are able to lower the numbers of institutions, money is saved. The services have intensity too, that mitigates any public concerns that may exist” said Martínez.

“75 to 85% of youths are re-arrested within three years of release. No system collects this data ideally or systematically, but the number is stable, and it has been like this for a while. The number does drop for re-incarceration, down to 50%, but it is still pretty high, it makes you feel like we are not getting it right the first time”, said Martínez.

Detention as a revolving door is a special concern with young offenders, because their terms tend to be shorter than for adult offenders, if issues are not being dealt with they will keep returning. Innovative programs for young offenders, both pre and post sentencing, involve doing away with detention in favor of enrolling them in monitored and demanding activities that include sports, job training, continuing education, psychological support and other such services.

“A bunch of instruments are being developed on two fronts, on how do you keep kids out and what to do once they are in jail.” said Martínez, citing programs developed in Missouri for example, where an model detention program has corrections centers that look like dorm rooms instead of prisons and where kids wear normal clothing instead of uniforms.

The other concern is to keep young offenders close to home, localized. Instead of having youths convicted in one jurisdiction moved 4 or 5 hours away and thus setting up a situation for a traumatic return to their communities, new thinking stresses preserving community bonds. That means often offering the families of young offenders access to services.

These new tools are now being considered for adult offenders. “When we think young offenders, we think teenagers, but we are trying to take these initiatives to adults too. We are looking for alternatives to bench warrants for example, which is when a judge issues an arrest warrant for parolees who fail to report to authorities as they are required. This is a situation in which electronic monitoring can be useful,” said MacDonald. 

Gang association under a new perspective

There are two variables that will define whether a young offender is eligible for alternatives to detention, and they are not linked to the nature of the offense: the questions asked are if there is a risk of re-offense pending court, and whether there is a flight risk.

Take the problem of association with gang members. “In the past we would ask youths not to associate with gang members, and then as a response, lock them up with gang members,” said MacDonald, adding: “Now we try to design programs and interventions that are more positive and less negative, less about cutting off. We have successful soccer programs, we focus on jobs, on continuing education... we try to work closely with young offenders and give them the attention they need.”

Apart from the AZTECA soccer program that gave one of their probation officers an award, the Chief Probation Officer of Santa Cruz County noted the work of the Wrap Around Services in Santa Cruz. The program brings together probation officers with mental health professionals and families of offenders. “We ask families what their concerns are and then try to include them in a service provision system,” making sure those families can help preserve the ties that bind these young men and women to the community.

Part of the new trend guiding policy is to use ongoing evaluations of programs to see whether they do produce results, and to design programs based on prior surveys and studies so that it can be assured that they are effective and well managed. The concept has even gained a fashionable acronym, EBP, Evidence Based Practices.

“We need to do more than incarcerate. We must provide opportunities and measure the impact of our programs more thoroughly, not let fear and the media hype around worst case scenarios drive the policy of the day. We need to make sure that policy is driven by data and not anecdote,” summed up MacDonald.

“The stress on evaluating programs in terms of Evidence Based Practices is healthy, but like with many things, it has to be taken critically. There are two risks we are running here, one is resorting to imported models that are not tailored to local realities, and the other, is that one false step, one fluke shooting, and an entire program may be jeopardized”, cautions Martínez.

Cover Photo: Gina Smith, for Photoxpress.

Read Further:

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative

"These are our kids: Transforming Juvenile Detention in Three American Cities” film (13 minutes) by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Chief Probation Officer of Santa Cruz, official website