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By Abigail Klein
WASHINGTON, DC – Richard Mendel presents promising findings of The Sentencing Project’s “Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration,” encouraging state and local systems to adopt new policies.
Mendel, in the report, argues policy adoption must occur alongside a change of attitude regarding youth incarceration.
In “System Reforms to Reduce Youth Incarceration: Why We Must Explore Every Option Before Removing Any Young Person from Home,” Mendel reviews instances of state and local level reforms that have been shown to prevent “the overuse of incarceration and maximize the success of youth who are placed in alternative-to-incarceration programs.”
Mendel explains that youth incarceration is not only unnecessary, but ineffective. He writes that removal of youth from their homes, schools, and communities is harmful to their wellbeing and development. In counterproductive fashion, incarceration is actually shown to increase the likelihood of youth recidivism.
Mendel believes youth incarceration should become a “last resort” in the juvenile justice system. He reviews exemplary systems that successfully combat the problems of youth incarceration. Each of them has adopted alternative-to-incarceration programs or other forms of preventative practice.
At the state level, critically important laws, policies and budgets are imperative to reducing youth incarceration, said Mendel, naming Maryland as a lead example of state level change, and reporting “Maryland sent only 260 youth to placement facilities—an 83 percent decline” since 2014. He added “nearly twice as many youth (465) participated in evidence-based family therapy programs.”
Mendel believes the profound changes in Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services go beyond policy.
He writes Maryland underwent “a fundamental philosophical shift.” He quotes the proactive language of Department of Juvenile Services secretary Sam Abed: “What we are trying to do is not punish kids, but change their behavior. We don’t need to use a criminal justice response to change the behavior.”
Mendel goes on to applaud other states who have adopted policies aimed at reducing youth incarceration, citing California legislation that allows “…state commitments only for youth adjudicated (found guilty) for serious or violent felony offenses. Over the subsequent six years, the population confined in state youth correctional facilities declined 69 percent.”
He also brings attention to Ohio’s RECLAIM program, which boasts a $32 million fund. The funds are allocated to counties depending on their success in reducing the number of youth sentenced to incarceration. Mendel reports that “…the population confined in Ohio’s state-operated youth corrections facilities declined from over 2,500 in 1992, when RECLAIM began, to just over 300 in 2021.”
Alongside state reform, Mendel proposes local level action shown to reduce an overreliance on incarceration. At the local level, courts, prosecutors and probation agencies make critical decisions about how youth cases are handled. Mendel therefore finds that local reform aligns with the need for careful identification of “…problematic practices that exacerbate disparities and institute reforms that ensure greater equity.”
For instance, he reports on the 300 local jurisdictions that have prospered under the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) model. He says that the comprehensive JDAI model combats overreliance on detention based on eight core principles, and “… participating sites reduced average daily detention populations in detention by 50 percent, with no harm to public safety.”
Mendel emphasizes mere incorporation of policies and practices by states and local youth justice systems will not suffice, arguing “the most essential ingredient for reducing overreliance on youth incarceration is a mindset—a determination to seize every opportunity to keep young people safely at home with their parents and families, in their schools and communities.”
