Shut Those Doors

Like many states, Massachusetts has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of youth who are held in detention (awaiting trial).  Due to both falling juvenile crime rates and the admirable efforts of the Department of Youth Services (DYS) to promote the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), the number of detention beds has declined by 50% in the last 3 years.  As the editorial from Monday’s New York Times (below) shows, New York has had less success in closing down juvenile facilities, despite a decreasing juvenile population.

As soon as Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo takes office, he should close a half-dozen more of New York’s ruinously expensive, and half-empty, juvenile detention facilities. He should also press the State Legislature to revoke a wasteful law that keeps facilities scheduled for shutdown open and staffed for a full year, even when there is not a single child in custody

These moves would save millions of dollars, and improve public safety and the lives of troubled children.

NY Governor Seeks Juvenile Justice Reform

Following reports about major problems in New York’s juvenile justice system, Governor Paterson is proposing changes, including reducing the number of youth in state custody and establishing greater oversight for the juvenile facilities.  The New York Times provided coverage yesterday in its “City Room” blog:

Paterson Proposes Juvenile Justice Overhaul

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Gov. David A. Paterson introduced legislation on Wednesday to begin overhauling New York’s troubled juvenile prison system, in what aides described at a first step toward broader changes long sought by critics of the system.

The legislation would prohibit judges from placing youths in state juvenile prisons unless they had been found guilty of a violent felony or a sex crime or a judge had determined that a youth posed a significant risk to themselves or others. Such a move would set the stage to significantly shrink the number of youths in state custody.

Jails and Playgrounds

The New York Times recently reported on a Brooklyn neighborhood that had a “jail” as part of the local playground.

A ‘Jail’ for Children Stirs a Ruckus in Brooklyn

By Cara Buckley and Mick MeenanRobert Stolarik for The New York Times A maintenance worker prepared to paint over the word “Jail” at a playground at a public housing project in Brooklyn on Wednesday.

Playground controversies usually involve bickering parents, unruly dogs or bullies.

One exception is at the Tompkins Houses, a city housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where an orange jungle gym adorned with the word “Jail,” a cell door and prison bars has, six years after its installation, set off outrage in the neighborhood and the blogosphere, along with a hasty official response.

Zero tolerance in schools

Zero tolerance policies in schools are in the news again with a February 18 CNN report about a 12-year-old girl removed in shackles from a New York City public school for drawing on her desk.

The report includes other examples that demonstrate that, in the words of one person quoted in the article,  “There is zero intelligence when you start applying zero tolerance across the board…”

Girl’s arrest for doodling raises concerns about
zero tolerance

By Stephanie Chen, CNN

February 18, 2010 10:22 a.m. EST

(CNN) — There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, “I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)” scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.

Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct. . . .

Read the full article.