As the number of juvenile detainees increases, states begin to roll back their reforms

Filed
12:00 p.m. EST

12/21/2024

Los Angeles County is one of many places that has struggled to maintain safe conditions for young people and seen reform efforts stall or be abandoned.

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The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declared a “local emergency” at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall on Wednesday, allowing officials to reassign some of the county’s workforce to assume duties at the detention center for chronically understaffed young people. This was an unusual use of energy, usually reserved for disasters such as fires and extreme weather. The commission argued that this action was justified to prevent the county from being forced to release the approximately 250 youth incarcerated there “to the streets.”

The decision to use emergency powers to keep the hall open fell far short of a sweeping 2020 reform package backed by the board that aimed to close the county’s juvenile homes by 2025 and place young people in smaller, more family-friendly “safe and secure healing centers.” .” That effort has largely stalled due to legal constraints and a lack of funding, with the first healing center — accommodating about six young people — expected to open next year. The emergency decision also puts the county at odds with the state of California, which previously ordered the closure of the beleaguered Los Padrinos facility earlier this month after a botched inspection found inadequate staffing and unsafe conditions. So far, the county has refused to comply.

Los Angeles County is one of several places across the country that have pushed back on youth justice reforms in recent months, following a broader backlash against changes aimed at make criminal justice less punitive – particularly during the November general elections.

Take for example North Carolina, where this summer lawmakers salvaged the “raise the age” law passed in 2022, which aimed to keep juveniles out of the adult justice system. The new law, which took effect Dec. 1, automatically deals with many 16- and 17-year-olds charged with certain crimes as adults.

The change comes as the state defends itself in a lawsuit that claims teenagers in detention centers are held in solitary confinement for periods of 23 to 24 hours a day, worrying youth advocates. “We’re just making existing problems worse by placing these very vulnerable children in solitary confinement,” Jake Sussman, a legal expert, told journalist Rachel Crumpler. “It’s the opposite of a public health approach, the opposite of thinking about someone’s well-being and rehabilitation.”

State officials deny the practice of regularly holding youths in solitary confinement, but like many juvenile justice systems, they say they are strained due to understaffing and an increase marked by the population of young prisoners. From 2019 to 2023, the state’s average daily youth detention population increased by more than 150%, and the department experienced staff vacancy rates of nearly 75% for some positions, North Carolina Health reported News earlier this month.

One reason for the increase in the number of youth in North Carolina’s system is the expected result of reforms aimed at keeping older teens out of adult prisons, leaving them in the custody of the juvenile system. The same is true in New York state, where the number of inmates in some secure facilities increased by 200% after a 2018 change to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18. New York City’s detention centers have also experienced larger populations and increased violence, according to an October report from the city’s Department of Investigation.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, prosecutors want to increase the total number of beds in the state’s youth detention centers by 50 percent to combat what they see as a rise in juvenile-related violent crimes. The current number of available beds was set by a 2021 law that lowered that number to require counties to “let young people out who shouldn’t be there,” according to one of the bill’s authors.

Washington state also faces what Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee called an “avalanche” of young people entering the justice and detention systems. To address overcrowding, Inslee proposed repurposing an empty building into an adult prison. Youth rights advocates expressed concern, pointing out that the building was once used for solitary confinement, had no classrooms, no place for vocational training, or even a view of the greenery behind it. the windows with foggy glass.

Four years ago, the state committed to something very different when Inslee signed a series of laws known as “Juvenile Rehabilitation up to 25 Years of Age.” The reforms were meant to create an environment conducive to recovery and provide intensive education, counseling, and drug treatment. These efforts were mostly unsuccessful, according to a Seattle Times editorial board editorial, which concluded that “despite fine words about the push for ‘trauma-informed’ and ‘developmentally appropriate’ therapeutic placement for young people, the State does not do it. I don’t have the will to do the hard work of rehabilitating young people.

And in Louisiana, where “raise the age” legislation was also repealed in April, it was reported this week that cities across the state were clamoring for a share of a “new housing boom.” correctional construction.” The state has set aside more than $150 million for new buildings, and juvenile facilities will get priority, The Lens reported.

In all of the above cases, the belief that youth crime is increasing explains, at least in part, the setbacks and efforts to find new detention spaces. Whenever this newsletter discusses rising or falling crime rates, we like to remind readers that the answer is complicated by at least three questions: What do we mean by crime, where, and over what period of time? These caveats also apply to understanding youth crime. An analysis released this fall by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that youth crime is generally declining, with one glaring exception: Youth homicides increased 65% between 2016 and 2022, reflecting the increase in violent victimization of young people.

In Maryland, another state that rolled back its juvenile justice reforms this year, a study by The Sentencing Project — an anti-incarceration advocacy group — found that local media “misinterpreted isolated increases in the short term resulting from artificially low delinquency rates during the pandemic as a major problem. new wave of teen crime,” helping to spur public and legislative response.

This week, Kevin T. Brown, an incarcerated writer in the state, gave his views in the Baltimore Sun on ongoing efforts to roll back the most recent youth justice reforms. “I have been incarcerated for over 33 years and am the product of the ‘lock ’em up and throw away the key’ approach to the problem of youth violence. Today, it appears that nothing has been gained from this failed strategy.”