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.”   

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.”

Two different evidence-based programs each have unique pros

SHIELDS for Families has been using both Multisystemic Therapy (MST) and Functional Family Therapy (FFT) off and on since 2004. Some might ask why not one or the other? They both are evidence-based models and work with the whole family and the offender—with good results.

Before going further, it should be said that at my agency, SHIELDS, they are used quite differently. MST deals with youths who are repeat violent offenders having committed several serious crimes. Many can be characterized as hard core and will very likely end up incarcerated. FFT works with high-risk juveniles who might have committed lesser crimes.

The numbers are frightening. Right now, 2.3 million Americans are behind bars. That’s 1 in 137 people, and the majority are African-American and Latino. 

It’s mind-boggling that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country on earth. Is the country overrun with evildoers, or are we are doing something different than, say, Canada, which only has 40,500 people behind bars. Even Iran, considered an oppressive nation, has a prison population of 218,000.

The consensus at yesterday’s American Justice Summit at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City was we are doing something exceedingly counterproductive—and it’s not sustainable.

As John Wetzel, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said about incarceration and its aftermath, “Higher-risk offenders leave lower-risk. Lower-risk offenders leave higher-risk.”  And what does that mean? Simply that we may be locking up too many non-violent wrongdoers and turning them into hardened criminals behind prison walls.

Fewer than 15 years ago, Connecticut’s network of contracted programs to rehabilitate juvenile offenders was in jeopardy. The programs were not producing good enough results to justify their cost. And yet, in the past five years, there has been a 40-percent decrease in arrests. So, how did Connecticut turn the tide?

Crystal had reached the “What more can I do?” stage. Her 17-year-old daughter, Danielle, had been getting in trouble for years. It reached crisis overload when the girl disappeared over a Memorial Day weekend. Crystal was sure she had run away but hesitated involving the police.

As time passed, the mother felt she had no choice and had a PINS (People In Need of Supervision) warrant issued on her daughter. This meant that if found, Danielle would be returned to New York City, where they lived, and brought before a judge. 

Getting a warrant wasn’t a decision Crystal took lightly. She knew she ran the risk of losing her child to the juvenile justice system. Danielle was found safe in Washington, D.C. And then things changed dramatically for mother and daughter. The New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) had a mandate to keep kids out of the system and with their families whenever possible.

So instead of Danielle being carted away, the court recommended Multisystemic Therapy (MST) as her treatment plan. Crystal was “skeptical,” as she later put it. After all, she and Danielle had been seeing individual therapists for two years at the great out-of-pocket expense with little evidence her daughter was improving. MST was different, Crystal was told. A therapist would be assigned to the case, she would work with them in their home—and it wouldn’t cost the family anything.

What we already know from years of research is effective interventions for young people in the juvenile justice system must address risk factors across all aspects of the adolescent’s life. To succeed, the intervention has to take into account what puts the youth at risk for current and future anti-social behaviors, whether it has to do with the individual, family, peer, school, or community. Not to be overlooked are such considerations as to whether there are warm, supportive relationships with caring adults and positive peer associations, which help steer juveniles away from behaviors that put them at risk for criminal activity.

In 2011, it was reported that Kentucky had one of the highest rates in the country for sending juveniles to jail for noncriminal offenses such as running away and truancy. The year before that meant 1,500 adolescents were incarcerated at the staggering cost of $2 million. “There has to be a better alternative than locking a child behind a door to get their attention,” said Kentucky’s Deputy Director of Juvenile Justice Hasan Davis.

The state government decided there are—evidence-based treatment programs.