Many children who end up in juvenile detention don't need to be there. Prevention or alternative treatment would be better for incarcerated children and for the rest of us.
That statement pretty much sums up the message delivered in Fayetteville last week with the release of a new report from Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
The conclusion is not unlike what we hear when researchers examine the national predisposition to lock up all kinds of offenders, but the fact that children are involved should awaken greater sensibility to the questions raised.
Why are children being locked up? Who are they? What did they do to get there? What happens to them after incarceration?
Apparently, not all those questions can be answered completely because detention records are inadequate or missing in this state. However, there is enough data from the state Administrative Office of the Courts and some other sources to suggest that too many children are being locked up.
Between 2010 and 2012, the report said, more than 41,000 incidents resulted in detention of Arkansas youth, including 264 who were age 10 or younger.
That fact alone reinforces the idea that some detention must be inappropriate.
Paul Kelly, senior policy analyst for the organization, prepared the report, which calls for redirection of resources from incarceration to prevention and treatment. The full report is available online at aradvocates.org.
"It's understandable that older youth might pose a more serious threat to public safety, or be at risk for not appearing in court, but it is hard to conceive that children age 10 or younger would require being locked in jail except for any other reason than the lack of more appropriate alternative placements," he wrote.
Again, a lack of documentation prevented his discovering why so many children were detained.
"But the sad fact that they were, speaks to the lack of community service alternatives," he wrote.
The real questions are about many more, older children who get incarcerated and whether the investment the public makes in juvenile detention is a cost-effective way to deal with their misbehavior, whatever it might be.
Despite inconsistent data, the report analyzed the charges against detained youth in Arkansas in a three-year period and concluded that just shy of 90 percent were for non-violent offenses. Also, 87 percent were misdemeanors.
The report notes a large number of youth with one low-level charge against them are being detained even before they have been found delinquent. This pre-adjudication practice should be scrutinized closely, the report said, before a youth is denied liberty.
The report makes a lot of points, not the least of which is that detention makes recidivism more likely later in life. Kids make minor mistakes but get caught up in the judicial system.
The report actually talks about the changing environment in the schools that has created a "school-to-prison pipeline."
Understand, the report's focus is not on knife-wielding students like the one in the national news last week or the sort who carry guns into their classrooms. Those children, no matter their age, pose a real danger to themselves and others. They're also usually bound for more serious confinement, either in adult jails or in security facilities such as those operated by Arkansas' Division of Youth Services.
But the phenomenon of violence in the schools experienced nationwide has dramatically altered the school environment.
"Fueled by zero-tolerance policies and increased police presence, schools turn to the courts to address discipline problems once handled in school. And the courts are left with too few options," the report said.
Minor incidents at school can lead to juvenile detention because youth are more likely to be written up for non-felony offenses such as simple assault and therefore more likely to be arrested.
Of course, it might not be the first playground fight that gets a child written up. But the point is there needs to be some other intervention to keep that kid from entering the judicial system.
As it is, a child may face only one misdemeanor offense yet end up in one of the state's 14 juvenile detention centers, including those operated locally in Benton and Washington counties.
Notably, the local facilities are participating in a national initiative aimed at juvenile detention reform. Most of what has been done so far involves thorough data collection from the two programs to determine how detention is used here.
They've been working with the Arkansas Division of Youth Services and the Annie E. Casey Foundation on the pilot effort to figure out what factors led local youth to detention.
Significantly, both counties have seen reductions in the numbers of intakes at their respective facilities and were pursuing alternatives to incarceration long before involvement in the national initiative.
What they're doing now will help guide reform not just here but elsewhere in the state.
Commentary on 04/13/2014