Update: South Dakota Moves Quickly on Juvenile Justice Reform 

Often the wheels of government turn very slowly. From the inception of an idea to passage can take years of wrangling, modifications, and more wrangling before it reaches consideration in the legislature.

Such was not the case in South Dakota. Having had success with an overhaul of its adult justice system, Gov. Dennis Daugaard and Chief Justice David Gilbertson were intent on improving the juvenile system. After all, it was costing $140,000 a year for each youth commitment. Annual tuition at the University of South Dakota is only $13,904. And the returns on the commitment investment were not good. Forty percent of the adolescents were back with the Department of Corrections (DOC) three years after they were released.

New Initiatives Improve Ohio’s Juvenile Justice Outcomes

The ‘status quo’ can be a barrier to progress.  Moving out of the comfort zone can promote innovation and generate outcomes. This is especially true when it comes to juvenile justice.

Ohio recognized this when it came to reforming its juvenile justice system. In 1993, it created RECLAIM Ohio (Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to the Incarceration of Minors) in an attempt to get courts to use community-based programs “to meet the needs of each juvenile offender or youth at risk of offending.” By providing funding incentives, in the first pilot year alone, it had a 42.7% drop in commitments.

In this era of extreme political contentiousness in the United States, it seems as if the conservatives are the conservatives, the liberals, the liberals and never the twain shall meet.

Except . . . there is one issue on which the two adversaries—or at least some of them—can agree. Criminal-justice reform.

Nell Bernstein is a passionate advocate for juvenile-justice reform, author of the widely praised “Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison” and journalist who was honored with a White House “Champion of Change.” Recently, she talked with MST about a number of topics, including the reaction to the book, the role of race in the juvenile justice system, and how MST and other evidence-based programs can be part of a comprehensive solution that addresses and changes the behaviors of juvenile offenders.

Bernstein writes in an easy-to-read style that blends facts with first-person accounts that reveal the often brutal and deadly world behind bars. The stories can be difficult to digest at times and beggar belief in others. It is, in short, a compelling argument in favor of completely rebuilding the juvenile-prison system. When I asked Bernstein if this argument was the purpose behind writing the book, she said she did not embark on the project with the preconceived notion that incarceration was inherently wrong and that “if I had seen something other than a completely counterproductive and destructive institution, then that is what I would have written.” But she added that she “had written about criminal justice for years and years, seen kids destroyed by it.”   

There is no debate that juvenile crime is of great concern in the United States. According to the FBI, youths younger than 18 commit almost 20 percent of all serious crimes, 13 percent of violent offenses, and 20 percent of crimes involving property. It’s also been found that a single lifetime of crime amounts to a $1.3 to $1.5 million burden on society. Knowing that makes it even more imperative to keep adolescents from becoming habitual criminals.

Where there is debate is how to deal with this problem and where to allocate funds earmarked for it. There are many who lean toward paying as little as possible upfront. Policymakers and those who sign the checks are under pressure to come up with programs that reduce crime without draining the budget. Often, they choose individual therapy instead of a program like Multisystemic Therapy (MST). What they overlook is the long-term savings when a treatment such as MST is implemented. It has been shown that youths commit fewer crimes following MST. That means lower future expenses for taxpayers and crime victims relative to the expenses associated with individual therapy.

MST provides parents with the tools to build strong families

When I think about the kids I meet and the families who invite me into their homes, I think about the despair that no one should have to experience. These parents at some point lost the power, not only to their child who is acting up but to the system. If you have ever held the hand of someone who is fighting back the tears as the judge is preparing to announce the decision he or she has made about the child's future, you know what despair I'm talking about.

We, as a nation, are sometimes riveted to something in our popular culture that we can’t stop talking about it and wait anxiously for the next episode or revelation. We speculated about Walter White’s motivation and moral compass as we collectively watched “Breaking Bad.” We repeated snippets of dialogue and mourned many deaths on “Downton Abbey.” Today, it’s not a TV show that has captured our national attention. it’s a podcast, “Serial.”

For many listeners, it’s a true “Did He Do It?” Did Adnan Syed, then 17, kill his former girlfriend? Did he, along with a small-time drug dealer named Jay, drive her body and ditch it in a park, as Jay told the police? Or was Syed at a library across from his high school, as one witness named Asia, who was never called to testify, maintains?

It’s a murky, complicated 15-year-old case that sent Syed, declaring his innocence, to jail for life. Most people were drawn to the podcast because of the mystery and anticipation for the next installment. They have theories about the case and how information was highlighted or downplayed, based on personal perspective. The Marshall Project interviewed legal minds right before episode 11, and it’s no surprise that lawyers leaned toward explanations and theories that were consistent with whether they “played offense or defense.”   I am drawn to it, in great part, because I filter everything through my MST lens.

Kids get into trouble. Some kids get into a lot of major trouble. They know right from wrong, but commit crimes anyway. So what to do with them? We want to be fair to these children by giving them the best shot at succeeding. Their success is ours, too. Stopping their crime will make all of us safer.

But as it is, our juvenile-justice system operates like a bike that can’t get out of first gear. That gear being incarceration. But is that right answer?

You may be wondering just how bad the situation is. So a few kids get sent away, big deal. But take a step back. Without question, incarcerating youth costs too much and makes them more likely to commit future crimes. Wouldn’t it make more sense to switch gears. 

Provide drug treatment, mental-health services, job training. And very importantly, give parents and caregivers the tools to change their children’s behavior. 

Take a look at this infographic that shows the costs of youth incarceration. Sometimes seeing makes it easier to believe. Going state by state, it’s pretty staggering how many juveniles end up in facilities and the price tag associated with putting them there.

The statistics told the story. When South Dakota government leaders read them, they knew there was a big problem. Here the state was ranked 46th in population, yet holding the dubious honor of having the second-highest commitment rate in the United States—385 per 100,000 youth. 

Was this high rate because more juveniles were being arrested for violent crimes than in other states? No, the state’s arrest rate was one‐third the national average in 2011. Locking up all these kids was a very expensive proposition. The state put the figure at 41,000 to $144,000 annually for each commitment. On top of that, after being released, 45 percent of the youth were back in confinement within three years.

The state of Pennsylvania adopted a new strategy in 2012 to improve its juvenile justice system. It was intent on following the precepts of the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Balanced and Restorative Justice philosophy, which seeks to help young offenders and their families while protecting the community.  

As part of this goal, a conference is held annually to share ideas, study results, and run workshops highlighting the practices, programs, and initiatives provided across the state. A part of this year’s theme was “The Right Service for the Right Youth for the Right Amount of Time.”