12/10/2023 0 Comments Citation project findings dropping9 Therefore, in addition to developing high-quality alternative to incarceration programs, local youth justice systems should replicate promising reforms underway in several parts of the country to: As a result, systems can propel even youth without any history of serious offending down a path toward incarceration. Too often, local youth justice systems employ practices that ignore the lessons of adolescent development research and conflict with the evidence of what works to steer youth away from delinquency. Shorten the duration of confinement for those who are incarcerated, emulating reform laws in Georgia, Kentucky, and West Virginia.Ensure access to rigorous treatment to prevent incarceration of youth with mental illnesses, following the examples set in Ohio and Texas.Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, and Washington State also invest substantial sums in local alternative programs. Connecticut increased its annual budget for evidence-based non-residential intervention programs from $300,000 in 2000 to $39 million in 2009. Redirect savings from decarceration to fund alternative-to-incarceration programs.Create fiscal incentives that discourage local courts from committing youth to state custody, such as those enacted by California, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin.California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah have all enacted laws in recent years limiting eligibility for incarceration in state facilities. Prohibit incarceration in state-funded youth correctional facilities for some offenses.Following are proven strategies some states are employing to reduce overuse of incarceration. State policies and budgets are centrally important in any effort to minimize youth incarceration. The report outlines an agenda of promising and proven reforms, citing examples from across the nation where reforms are being employed constructively. Most state and local youth justice systems continue to employ problematic policies and practices that often lead to incarceration of youth who pose minimal or modest risk to public safety. This report describes reforms that states and local justice systems can and should adopt to combat the overuse of incarceration and maximize the success of youth who are placed in alternative-to-incarceration programs. 8 System Reforms to Minimize Youth Incarceration Several alternative-to-incarceration program models have proven far more effective than incarceration in steering youth who pose a significant risk to public safety away from delinquency. 5 All of these harms of incarceration are inflicted disproportionately on youth of color. 5 It contradicts clear lessons from adolescent development research by interfering with the natural process of maturation that helps most youth desist from delinquency, 5 and it exacerbates trauma that many court-involved youth have suffered earlier in life. 4 Incarceration also exposes many youth to abuse. It increases the likelihood that youth will return to the justice system 3 and reduces young people’s future success and wellbeing. Rather, as The Sentencing Project documented in Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence, 2 removing young people from their homes, schools, and communities, and placing them in institutions, is most often counterproductive. Why Does Youth Incarceration Fail, and What are the Alternatives?Ĭompelling research finds that incarceration is not necessary or effective in the vast majority of delinquency cases. This report will highlight state and local laws, policies and practices that have maximized the effective use of alternative-to-incarceration programs and minimized the unnecessary incarceration of youth who can be safely supervised and supported at home. In addition, systems must make concerted, determined efforts to reduce the longstanding biases which have perpetuated the American youth justice system’s glaring racial and ethnic disparities in confinement. To reduce overreliance on youth incarceration, alternative-to-incarceration programs must be supported by youth justice systems that heed adolescent development research, make timely and evidence-informed decisions about how delinquency cases are handled, and institutionalize youth only as a last resort when they pose an immediate threat to public safety. But support for good programs is not the only or even the most important ingredient for minimizing youth incarceration. Well designed alternative-to-incarceration programs, such as those highlighted in Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration: What Works With Youth Who Pose Serious Risks to Public Safety, 1 are critically important for reducing overreliance on incarceration.
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