Three States Lead the Way for Juvenile Justice Reforms | Pew

State leaders from Georgia, Hawaii, and Kentucky enacted reforms that will change the lives of young people. http://www.pewtrusts.org/publicsafety.

Listen to state leaders discuss the shifting landscape of juvenile justice and how they enacted data-driven and fiscally sound policies that protect public safety, improve outcomes for youths, and contain correctional costs.

Learn more at http://www.pewtrusts.org/publicsafety.

- I got my first arrest
when I was 11 years old.

You know, you don't go from

banging on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia

with a life expectancy of 15 years

to Commissioner of Juvenile
Justice accidentally.

You go there because
somebody had the courage

to believe more and give you

the opportunity to become more.

And that's what we have to do.

That's our real work.

- Senate Bill 200 is adopted.

- Since the late 1990's the rate at which

juveniles are arrested for violent crime

has been cut in half.

And so has the rate at which they're held

in juvenile correctional facilities.

State policy leaders are now poised

to accelerate and lock in these trends

toward more public safety
at less tax payer expense.

- The time is right for
juvenile justice reform.

- We're living in a time now where

the opportunity has never been greater.

- We need to recognize that we can do

a better job with our kids.

- States from Georgia
to Kentucky to Hawaii

are taking a fresh look
at juvenile justice

because it was clear the
status quo was not working.

- Kentucky was spending it's money

it all the wrong ways.

- We weren't getting a
good return on investment.

We weren't getting results.

We weren't getting the best outcomes

for our most troubled children.

When I started to look at the type of kids

that we had at the correctional facility

I realized that the overwhelming majority

of them were not a risk to public safety.

- Like many judges, we were
committing kids by default.

- We were putting almost as many kids in

some type of detention facility

for missing school as we
were for committing a crime.

- We are forced, because
we don't have those

local community interventions,
to commit them to the state.

- We were spending a lot
of money on detention,

particularly for low level offenders,

when we see that that's not a productive

or effective way to invest
in the lives of those kids.

- Research shows that juvenile
correctional facilities

generally fail to produce better outcomes

than alternative
sanctions, cost much more,

and can actually increase
re-offending for certain youth.

- Putting kids in placement
in secure facilities,

lock up, does not actually deter crime.

- Longer stays don't seem
to show any positive effects

in terms of reducing rate of re-arrest.

At some point, we should
have a way of thinking about

why we're keeping an
adolescent in an institution

for a longer time period.

And if they are reasons to do that

then let's be explicit about that,

and figure out what
we're getting out of it.

- To get better results,
states are reducing

the number of youths sent
to correctional facilities

and reinvesting a portion of the savings

into programs and policies
that reduce recidivism.

- One of the ways that states
can really respond effectively

is to be able to sort
through kids in terms of

low risk, medium risk, high risk kids,

and to focus those resources effectively

on the adolescents who
are going to present

the highest risk of
public safety problems.

- If we require judges
to apply risk assessment

instruments before they can commit kids

to ensure that the lower risk kids

are not committed to the state.

- We're gonna see a dramatic shift

in the way we serve young people.

- These reforms, first of
all, are going to keep kids

who otherwise would have
been sent to a youth prison

to remain in the community
and receive the type

of interventions that need
to happen in their home.

- There will be a
significantly reduced number

of actual court cases filed.

They will be addressed appropriately

with social services on the front end.

- To better protect public safety,

you need to spend those
dollars at the front end

of the system versus the
back end of the system.

- Everything in juvenile
justice is about intervention.

Prevent a child learning
further criminal behaviors

and you prevent a future adult criminal.

- These reforms are not only
making communities safer,

but they're saving states
money because placing youth

in residential facilities is the most

expensive correctional option.

- When you can divert,
you can avoid sending

a low level child to
detention for $100,000 a year,

those savings mount up quickly.

- In the state of Hawaii
it's costing approximately

$199,000 a year to incarcerate a youth.

- The bottom line is that
we have passed a bill

that gets better outcomes for children

and does so at a lower
cost for the tax payer.

- As a result of these reforms,

we have realized cost savings.

In Georgia for example,
we have already shut down

two facilities because we are no longer

committing low risk offenders.

- States are getting to good public policy

by looking at the data.

Across all branches of government,

and the partisan divide, state
leaders are coming together

to assess their systems
and find solutions.

- The collaboration on this bill is key.

We turned no one away.

- The task force was vital to the process

because it gave us that credibility

and that unified voice to speak with

when rolling out a package
of legislative reforms.

- These reforms are grounded in research

and the public supports them.

- The public has always been more positive

in its orientation toward
youthful offenders.

- Eighty-five percent of voters
say they are not concerned

whether juvenile offenders are sent to

correctional facilities or
how long they stay there.

What matters is reducing the likelihood

of future crime.

- I really think in some
way we're kinda coming

back around to what the
public expected all the time

from the juvenile justice system.

- State leaders have successfully adopted

reforms that will change the direction

of juvenile justice policy
and the lives of young people.

- For every child that we divert from the

criminal justice system
and decrease the chances

they'll ever enter it, that's a policy win

in so many ways.

- We go into public
service to do those things.

That's why we're there.

- If we continue on this trajectory,

the only children that
come to the deep end

of our system will be the ones that

absolutely need it and every other child

in the commonwealth, and
hopefully in the nation,

will move forward to
their greatest successes.