aecf-NoPlaceForKidsFullReport-2011

How Should States Go About ReformingJuvenile Corrections?How can states and communities best go about reducing incarceration rates and closing youth correctionsfacilities to ensure that reform efforts are safe, responsible, constructive, and cost-effective?The case against juvenile corrections facilities isoverwhelming. Countless studies and decades ofexperience show that these institutions are bothdangerous and ineffective. Given the limitedoffending histories of most youth placed intocustody, secure confinement is more often thannot unnecessary. Exhaustive research shows correctionalconfinement is an obsolete and financiallywasteful model for the care and treatmentof delinquent youth. Meanwhile, the care providedin correctional facilities is often inadequateto meet the extraordinary needs faced by manyconfined youth.Over the past three decades, delinquencyscholars have achieved significant advances indetermining what works in reversing delinquentbehavior—including the development of severalinterventions that yield better outcomes thanincarceration at a fraction of the cost. Meanwhile,pioneering jurisdictions across the nationhave made noteworthy progress in recent yearsreducing the unnecessary and inappropriate useof correctional confinement. Numerous stateshave closed facilities or lowered correctional populations,reaping significant savings for taxpayerswithout any measurable increase in youth crime.Indeed, if states adopt proven best practices formanaging juvenile offenders and then reallocatefunds currently spent on incarceration to moreconstructive crime prevention and treatmentstrategies, there is every reason to believe thatreducing juvenile facility populations will resultin less crime, not more.The final chapter of this report provides anaction agenda for states seeking to improveoutcomes in their juvenile justice systems bysevering their long-standing fealty to the youthincarceration model. Specifically, it identifies sixkey priorities for action.PRIORITY1.Limit Eligibility for Correctional PlacementsCommitment to a juvenile corrections facility should be reserved for youth who havecommitted serious offenses and pose a clear and demonstrable risk to public safety.The most direct strategy for reducing the populationsof juvenile corrections facilities is to sharplylimit, by statute, the categories of youth who areeligible for correctional placement. Several stateshave taken just this approach in recent years,with auspicious results. (See Fig. 12 on p. 29.)In 2007, California banned placements to statejuvenile corrections facilities for all low-level andnon-violent offenders. Texas passed a law thesame year prohibiting commitments to the Texas28