Editorial: Non-violent juveniles should not be locked up

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Updated: February 4, 2012 11:36AM

Illinois has long been a pioneer in juvenile justice, creating the nation’s first juvenile court as long ago as 1899. But in recent years, Illinois hasn’t looked so much like a pioneer anymore. The wooden wheels have been coming off the covered wagon.

A recent report indicates that more than half the youths incarcerated by the Illinois Department of Justice wind up back behind bars. If the original pioneers failed at that rate, they never would have made it west of the Mississippi.

The report released last month by the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission — a federally mandated advisory group to the governor, Legislature and Department of Human Services — corroborates earlier findings that locking up nonviolent juvenile offenders fails to reform them, costs too much and makes us no safer. In the long term, the state would be wise to switch its focus from youth incarceration to more effective community-based programs.

One of the problems uncovered by the Juvenile Justice Commission after reviewing the records of more than 380 parole revocations and more than 230 hearings before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board is that the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice uses an adult-style parole system, which means that many teens go back to prison for minor violations. In fact, for seven of the last eight years, more than half the juveniles behind bars were there for truancy or breaking curfew. That’s not doing them — or the state — any good.

A separate study released in October by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “No Place for Kids, the Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration,” similarly concluded that youth incarceration, which costs states a yearly average of $88,000 per youth, is not paying off in public safety, rehabilitation or cost.

Illinois already is making some encouraging changes. Starting this week, judges will be required to explore alternatives before committing juvenile offenders to prison. The DOJJ itself is trying to shift from a punitive model to one of rehabilitation. And Illinois has reduced the number of youths in juvenile detention. The state’s eight juvenile prisons are far under capacity, with 1,754 beds but fewer than 1,120 occupants.

These two reports echo other research that indicates well-designed community-based services and supervision are more effective and more cost-efficient than simply putting offenders behind bars. According to the Casey study, 18 states have closed more than 50 juvenile prisons since 2007, and some of those states have put the savings into community-based care.

The Casey study found that for youths who were incarcerated, up to 72 percent were convicted of a new offense within three years. But states that lowered juvenile confinement rates the most from 1997 to 2007 saw the greatest declines in arrests for violent crimes, it found. The study also found that in-home or community-based programs deliver equal or better results for a fraction of the cost.

These findings haven’t been lost on the Illinois PTA, the Juvenile Justice Initiative and other groups that want more money channeled to programs that divert young offenders from juvenile prisons.

Giving juveniles access to drug treatment and family counseling in their communities is more effective than incarceration.

The lock-’em-up mentality hasn’t worked.