Juvenile Justice Revamp Would Focus On Prevention, Diversion

October 10, 2013

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice is proposing a major overhaul of its mission, emphasizing prevention while keeping the most dangerous offenders from committing more crimes.

DJJ Secretary Wansley Walters on Wednesday told the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee that by revamping the laws governing her agency, dwindling dollars could be applied more strategically.

“We have hurt the future of many children by moving them deeper in the system than they needed to be,” Walters said. “On the other hand, we have had other children who have wreaked havoc in our communities and moved on into the adult system that we haven’t done a good job on.”

Walters said DJJ possesses the tools and ability “to do a much, much better job and to protect not only public safety but these children’s futures.”

Her draft legislation includes using risk-assessment tools and alternatives to detention in order to keep low- to moderate-risk offenders out of the deep end of the juvenile justice system, where the likelihood of recidivism is highest.

“It really puts into statute the prevention piece, which is a very critical part of the reforms,” Walters said.

Getting the Legislature’s approval would require the support of prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies, but on Wednesday the proposal got significant backing before the subcommittee.

“It has truly been a collaborative, consensus-building process,” Duval County Sheriff John Rutherford said.

“The police chiefs are wholeheartedly committed to prevention,” Winter Haven Police Chief Gary Hester said.

A key tenet of Walters’ plan is the use of civil citations, a method of sanctioning juveniles for non-violent first offenses rather than detaining them. Law enforcement has opposed civil citations in the past, preferring to keep its discretion in charging juveniles, but during Walters’ tenure as secretary the civil-citation practice has spread from 17 to 51 counties.

She told lawmakers the success rate for juveniles who get civil citations was 94 percent, meaning that they complete their legal obligations and don’t commit additional offenses within a year.

But House Criminal Justice Chairman Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican, didn’t let that pass unchallenged.

“So if a juvenile offender were to receive a civil citation, complete their program and then be re-arrested 12 months and one day later, statistically we would define that as success?” he asked.

The answer was yes, according to DJJ’s research director, Mark Greenwald — “but most of the kids who re-offend do so fairly quickly.”

Rep. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican and a member of the panel, backed the DJJ revamp and the use of civil citations.

“Most of the sheriffs have come around,” Harrell said. “They’re seeing it work. You can’t argue with success.”

But Duval’s Rutherford warned that increased use of civil citations could lead to more prosecutions, because officers who previously let juvenile offenders off the hook would now be forced to take action.

And Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, president of the Florida Sheriffs Association, said civil citations should be an option — but not mandatory.

“We do more in our county without the civil citation than the civil citation would allow,” Judd said. “I think it is a good alternative if you don’t have a successful program in your county or judicial circuit.”

Yet according to former Monroe County Sheriff Allison DeFoor, who backs civil citations, statistics are driving the change Walters is proposing.

“If everyone will look at the data, the data will carry the day,” he said.

During the 2013 session, lawmakers took a more hard-line approach to juvenile justice than Walters’ revamp would create.

A proposal (SB 660 and HB 603) that would have required law enforcement to issue civil citations to first-time misdemeanants instead of arresting them never got a hearing in either chamber.

Neither did a proposal (SB 1374 and HB 1039), which was intended to reduce what backers called the “school-to-prison pipeline.” It would have required schools with zero-tolerance policies to report to law enforcement only serious threats to school safety.

But two recent developments dealt a $54.5-million blow to DJJ’s budget, Walters told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee on Monday.

The first was a June 2013 ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal, agreeing with counties in a dispute with DJJ about paying for juveniles’ “pre-dispositional” detention — an additional $35.5 million cost for the agency this fiscal year, with an increase to $39.3 million expected next year.

Also in June, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services discontinued Medicaid funding for youth in non-secure residential facilities, with the fiscal impact to DJJ estimated to be $19 million for 2013-2014.

Walters on Monday asked the Senate panel to make up $19 million of DJJ’s $54.5 million deficit, but on Wednesday said her agency’s legislative overhaul wouldn’t cost the state more.

She said keeping less-dangerous juveniles out of deep-end detention facilities would save money that could be applied elsewhere.

“So that we know we are taking children who are just doing kid things and never going to be serious offenders and not use resources on them, but be able to be very strategic with our resources so we can do a better job with serious offenders,” she said.

by Margie Menzel, The News Service of Florida

Comments

2 Responses to “Juvenile Justice Revamp Would Focus On Prevention, Diversion”

  1. cj on October 11th, 2013 2:44 pm

    I worked in the system for years and saw it explode when little things became major things – good kids except for a brief second when a temper might have flared and where things could have been worked out were then marked for life. – we need to get back to good decision making.

  2. David Huie Green on October 10th, 2013 8:19 am

    We have hurt young criminals by putting them in jail?

    By the way, the practice of withholding adjudication is very nearly the same concept but with sharp teeth. In effect the judge says, “You and I both know you are guilty, but if you will do these things and not commit any other crimes for the next few years, I’ll let it pass. If you insist in throwing away this opportunity, I will hit you with the full force of the law. The ball’s in your court.”

    Please consider their outcomes depend on their choices. Those choices depend greatly on their values.

    To protect them from the corrupting influence of older criminals, though, isolation during incarceration might help.

    David for keeping bad kids from bad kids and bad adults

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News