Georgia Council Says State Could Save Tens of Millions By Lowering Juvenile Detention Population

By |

The Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians recently released a report claiming that the state could save an estimated $88 million by reducing the number of young people held in secure facilities over the next five years. The authors of the report recommend decreasing the state’s total out-of-home adjudicated population by more than a quarter by 2018, stating that the measure would allow “significant opportunities for savings and reallocation of resources.”

The report states that status offenders should not be subjected to either short-term or long-term detention, while young people accused of misdemeanors would be better served by diversions to community-based programs. Combined, status offenders and youth found guilty of misdemeanors represented more than a quarter of Georgia’s juvenile lock-up population in 2011. Currently, almost 30 crimes are considered “designated felonies” in the state of Georgia, including several property offenses, such as smash and grab burglaries. Last year, however, almost two-fifths of the designated felons in the state’s youth developmental campuses (YDC) were assessed as “low-risk,” while approximately 40 percent of young people in Georgia YDCs in 2011 were detained for committing non-violent offenses. The report suggest revising the state’s Designated Felony Act (DFA) to establish a two-class system that “continues to allow for restrictive custody in all designated felony (DF) cases while adjusting the dispositional sanctions to take into account both offense severity and risk level.”

Prior to entering state custody, the council suggests that young people be assessed for their likelihood of committing future crimes and given mental health screenings.

Notion that “Kids are Different” Takes Hold in Youth Justice Policy Reform

By |

2005 – Roper v. Simmons: U.S. Supreme court rules that it is cruel and unusual punishment to impose the death penalty on people for crimes committed when they were younger than 18. “[F]rom a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.” Roper v. Simmons, 543 U. S. 551, 570 (2005). 

2010 – Graham v. Florida: U.S. Supreme Court rules that life-without-parole sentences imposed on children for non-homicide offenses are unconstitutional. “‘(J)uvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.’ “ Graham v, Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 2026 (2010), quoting Roper, 543 U.S., at 573.“Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of ‘irretrievably depraved character’ than are the actions of adults. Id. 

2011 -- J.D.B. v. North Carolina: U.S. Supreme Court establishes that youth status matters in areas of youth justice beyond the context of harsh sentencing policies when it imposed the requirement that law enforcement officials must consider the age of a suspect in determining whether Miranda warnings should be issued.

Florida DJJ Says Aftercare Contractors Overpaid; State May Replace Vendors with Probation Officers

By |

UPDATE: The Henry & Rilla White Foundation, Inc. released a response to these reports, which can be found here: Letter to The Reader Forum - Miami Herald. With more than $1.2 million in annual benefits and salary - a majority of which stems from state tax payers - Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice says it’s time to decrease the pay of William Schossler, president of  Tallahassee’s The Henry & Rilla White Youth Foundation. Schossler, 65, heads a nonprofit that currently holds 23 statewide juvenile justice contracts in Florida, with the foundation managing numerous residential treatment beds and funding programs that grants adolescents access to therapy and counseling after leaving state care. In total, the Henry & Rilla White Youth Foundation’s juvenile justice contracts with Florida are tallied at an estimated $10.2 million in value. The state DJJ, however, believes that Schossler’s pay - which in 2010, consisted of almost $400,000 in salary and more than $800,000 in additional compensations - is excessive, with Florida juvenile justice chief Wansley Walters stating that the funding should go towards youth services instead.

Major Layoffs Expected for New Orleans’ Juvenile Court in 2013

By |

Massive cuts are expected for New Orleans’ Juvenile Court, with more than 30 employees expected to be removed from the city’s payroll in early 2013. More than a third of the court’s funding was recently slashed, Chief Judge Ernestine Gray told WWLTV, with more than $800,000 recently removed from the court’s former budget of $2.7 million. Reserve funds will be used to keep recently laid off employees available as contracted workers, although Judge Gray said that such funding will likely be expended before next year. “If we have the same situation from the city and the mayor next year for our budget,” she said, “I don’t know how we operate in 2014.”

The funding cuts were authorized by the New Orleans City Council, at the behest of Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration, who told the council that New Orleans had a larger judicial bench than necessary for the city’s workload. New Orleans Chief Administrative Officer and Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin said that since the workload for the city’s juvenile court has decreased, while the city’s municipal court workload has increased, he considers the funding cuts to be appropriate.

West of Memphis

By |

(Sony Pictures Classics, R)

Equality before the law is a basic principle of the American justice system. Faith in the jury system is another cornerstone of our system, and the wisdom of allowing local control in policing and justice matters is a third. All three come in for harsh criticism in West of Memphis, Amy Berg’s new documentary about the West Memphis Three, whose trial, conviction, and appeal has also been covered in the Paradise Lost trilogy of documentaries by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. The West Memphis Three—Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin—were teenagers in 1993 when they were charged with murdering three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. This crime drew widespread publicity due to its horrifying nature: the bodies of the murdered children were discovered, naked and hogtied, in a local creek, and appeared to have been sexually mutilated.

Restorative Justice Practices Should not be Treated like a Commodity

By |

I was sitting with my brother in law watching television a few nights ago. It was late and we had been busy all day with Christmas stuff. I had made some hot apple cider with a little Irish whiskey, and we sipped it as we watched an old movie. A long commercial came on advertising the benefits of a national chain of cancer treatment centers. I remarked on how strange it seems to me that something like medical care is treated like a commodity, to the point of needing a slick ad campaign.