By Jason Ziedenberg, October 26 2009
[Full disclosure: I used to work for Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice (DCJ), where the study Jason writes about below was done. I'd be very interested in posting about data and studies done on youth in the juvenile justice system in other jurisdictions. --Ed.]
Diverting Youth with Low-Level Offenses Reduced Crime
New research out of Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice (DCJ) shows that most young people who are kept out of the formal juvenile justice system do not reoffend. Among 271 young people, nearly eight out of ten who received no formal supervision did not reoffend within a year.
Of this group, two years out, 75 percent had not been referred by police or the district attorney for a criminal offense. When they did reoffend, it was for less serious offenses most of the time.
Results Consistent with National Research
Best practices and national research have found that, while some young people need to be detained to keep the public and these young people safe, for other young people arrested for an offense, locking them up or placing them under supervision could increase the chances that they will reoffend.
A study done by researchers at the University of Montreal found that those youth who entered the juvenile justice system were nearly seven times more likely to be arrested for crimes as adults, when compared with other kids with a similar history of delinquency. Further, those who ended up being sentenced to juvenile prison were 37 times more likely to be arrested again as adults, compared with similar young people who were either not caught or not put into the system.
Risk Assessment Tools Are Key
That's why Multnomah County and nearly 100 other communities have invested in scientific tools to help assess the risks and needs of young people, sort which kids need to be detained, which youth can be supervised in the community, and which ones can be diverted from the system altogether.
As Judge Nan Waller, Chief Family Court Judge for Multnomah County (and Judicial Fellow for Portland's Reclaiming Futures initiative), observed, “By helping those kids who can go back to their homes and families do so, the system can focus its resources on those young people who are more likely to commit a serious offense if we do not formally deal with them.”
Jason Ziedenberg is the Communications and Policy Manager for the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice.
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Topics: Juvenile Justice Reform, No bio box, Public Policy
Updated: February 08 2018