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“While it’s gratifying to see that the numbers are moving in the right direction, we must continue to work closely with our community partners to create alternatives to detention so youth don’t have to enter the juvenile justice system in the first place,” said DJJ Secretary Wansley Walters, citing Gov. Rick Scott’s support for her emphasis on “front end services” such as civil citation, diversion programs and community-based treatment.
“We cannot afford the financial or the societal costs of unnecessary juvenile incarceration,” said Gov. Scott. “By shifting our focus and our investments to the front end of the system, we will save not only money, but also the lives and futures of the young people in our care.”
Residential services are the most costly, and preliminary figures show that the number of youth committed to residential programs dropped substantially, from 5,442 in FY 2009-10 to 4,714 in FY 2010-11. The cost per youth varies from a low of about $30,000 per youth in residential, to a high of $100,000 per youth at the state’s Dozier facility, which was closed this year.
THE NATION: Texas is a leader in the nation on closing residential facilities, but are the monies saved being pumped into the front end for prevention, intervention and diversion, community-based services? The verdict isn’t in yet. Missouri continues to lead the nation with the “Missouri Model” for holistic, community-based, humane treatment of juveniles in smaller commitment facilities. A new report from Jeffrey A. Butts and Douglas N. Evans from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, titled Resolution, Reinvestment and Realignment: Three Strategies for Changing Juvenile Justice, calls the Missouri model the “resolution model,” likely to sustain the ups and downs of budget variances due to its reform principles, also copied by Massachusetts and Utah. The other models cited by Professors Butts and Evans are the reinvestment model, using financial incentives to reduce the demand of local jurisdictions for state-run commitment facilities, such as RECLAIM Ohio, Redeploy Illinois and recent reforms in Texas, and the Realignment model, replacing state facilities with local services, such as in Wayne County (Detroit), Michigan and in California. The professors conclude that reforms based on financial incentives are probably the most easily reversed.
One of the rewards of serving as a juvenile judge is being involved with people who care about kids, who want to improve their lives and the juvenile justice system. I’m always amazed at the new, novel, evidence-based and effective programs that arise to meet the needs of at-risk youth. While there are many to be found on the websites of all the foundations that fund them, such as the Eckerd Family Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Annie E. Casey
Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others, let me tell you about a new one I just learned of, that has an important focus: the crucial role of nonviolent communications.
John Lash, who served nearly 25 years in Georgia prison, released in 2009, is now a participant in Compassionate Leadership, a non-violent communication training program, and also a student in the Master of Conflict Management program at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. In September, he wrote an article for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE), found online at
juvenilejusticeinformationexchange.org, giving credit to Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s book and program, Nonviolent Communication, used from inner city Chicago to Rwanda. While I could imagine many uses for the book and program, including high conflict divorce cases, I was most impressed with Mr. Lash’s suggestion that nonviolent communication should be taught to kids.
“ I am convinced that teaching these skills to kids, including those who are incarcerated, can decrease the occurrence of crime, especially violent crime. Preferably NVC, or some similar method, would be taught in schools before kids ended up in trouble. What is needed are people interested enough to learn the skills themselves, then willing to share them with kids, teachers, parents, institutional staff, and anyone else who is in contact with young people.”
Mr. Lash came out of prison. That makes him unusual. But he’s not unusual in his concern and suggestions for reducing violence amongst our youth. It’s because of him, and those foundations and individuals like him, that I have more hope than concern that our juvenile justice reforms—locally, state and nationally—will survive.
was a juvenile and family court judge in Pinellas County, Florida, for 12 years. She is the author of the book, Raised by the Courts: One Judge’s Insight into Juvenile Justice, available at bookstores or on
Amazon.com
Irene Sullivan
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