California: A street side sign indicating the location of buildings involved with the juvenile correctional departments in Orange County, California

Opinion: Juvenile Justice Systems Are Shrinking — Why Aren’t Their Budgets?

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Youth arrest rates have plummeted over the past several decades, falling nearly 70% nationwide since 2000, including a 54% reduction in violent offense arrests. There are now fewer youth in juvenile halls or courtrooms and far smaller probation caseloads. Yet state and local governments continue to invest heavily in juvenile justice, shoring up systems that are known to cause harm. 

Amid the current economic crisis, maintaining overbuilt juvenile facilities and bloated probation budgets squanders resources that schools, health systems and community-based service providers desperately need. Moreover, funding excessive facility space can needlessly sweep youth into a system bent on self-preservation. In California, like much of the country, juvenile justice systems have experienced significant population reductions.

Change Yourself and Change the World

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All of us during our lives as children, adolescents and eventually adults need some encouragement. As the individuals we are, we tend to learn differently, have different perspectives and take risks on different levels. For those like myself, words of encouragement were really needed in my life to fulfill my true potential in the activities that I engaged in.

Juvenile Hall is Often No Place for Kids

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DURHAM, N.C. -- The local detention center where my juvenile clients are held while their cases are pending is called the “Youth Home.” The irony of the label is never lost on me, as the contrast between the name and the reality could hardly be starker. The rundown building is surrounded by barbed wire. Inside, kids sleep in narrow locked cells, no different from what you’d find in an adult jail. They are subjected to strip searches and attend an hour or two of “school” in a crowded room filled with a random selection of books. Juveniles are detained here for a variety of reasons.

Juvenile Hall Smaller in Texas

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Despite the cliché, not everything is bigger in Texas. A year after the state merged juvenile and criminal justices under one big agency and commanded it to divert youthful offenders away from big state lockups to neighborhood programs, a pair of advocates are pleased. But both have tips for states considering the same setup. The old system literally and figuratively put a lot of kids in the desert, said Benet Magnuson, a juvenile justice policy attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, an Austin-based prison reform group. “State facilities were less rehabilitative because the kids were isolated, it was hard to retain quality staff and they were ultimately unsafe for a lot of kids,” he explained.