Jail Break: a brief history of alternatives to the juvenile justice system

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*The most far-reaching example of a state turning to privatized corrections occurred in Massachusetts, where in 1969 the Department of Youth Services closed all of the state's training schools and restrictive detention facilities. This reform did not occur slowly or through careful political lobbying; in less than a year, the chief of DYS ordered the closures and oversaw the fulfillment of his orders. Jerome Miller became DYS commissioner in Massachusetts in late 1969 and began an intensive advocacy agenda. He delivered a series of speeches decrying injustices and inhumane treatment imosed on youths by the Massachusetts correctional system.

Soon after becoming commissioner, Miller issued orders to the staff of these facilities that youths must not be subjected to corporal punishment, lock-ups, haircuts, marching or imposed silences. The policy statements met with much resistance at the facilities. However, Miller maintained his stance. In 1971, Miller closed the state's two most restrictive institutions. In January 1972, he issued a mandate immediately closing all correctional institutions. Residents of these were either immediately paroled, placed in community-based treatment programs or housed temporarily in dormitories at the University of Massachusetts.

After Miller's reforms, only 10 percent of non-paroled DYS youths found placement in secure care facilities. While overall recidivism rates for juveniles remained the same in Massachusetts, some of the programs -- foster homes and boarding schools especially -- exhibited a dramatically reduced rate of referral.

*An example of a program that avoids confinement entirely, but that successfully reintegrates young offenders into their communities, is Project New Pride, a correctional program currently operated by the Colorado Division of Youth Services in Denver. Project New Pride takes youths who have committed multiple offenses and provides them with education, counseling and job placement. Though all of the involved youths have repeatedly engaged in criminal behavior, they are not placed in a confined environment. Instead, they live at home or in a community group home, throughout the one-year program period. For three months the youths attend a special school which concentrates on interpersonal skills they will need to function effectively in their homes and communities. After this period, all of the youths return to their regular public schools, enter vocational training programs or begin employment.

Initial studies of Project New Pride indicate a rate of effectiveness slightly higher than those of existing detention facilities. Seventy percent of the New Pride youths obtain job placement, and the re-arrest rate for that group was one-third the rate of unemployed youths. In addition to reducing the recidivism rate foe juveniles in Denver, Project New Pride has lowered the cost of corrections: The Project charges $4000 to serve per youth for a year, while the corresponding incarceration cost is $12,000 in Colorado. This program offers, then, a comparable rate of recidivism, a higher level of occupational productivity among youths and a cost tremendously lower than the status quo can maintain.

*Even less intrusive upon youths' lives than Project New Pride are diversion programs which a few states use to detach youthful offenders from involvement with the juvenile justice system. Two types of diversion appeared at the height of its popularity among juvenile criminologists. The first type was secondary diversion which suspended all justice system intervention with involved youths after their arrest, referring them instead to other public service agencies. The second type was pure diversion, which involved problem youths (identified by school and law enforcement authorities in counseling and job training programs before they actually got arrested.) These programs have since suffered reduction as the powerful conservatice movement demanded a more punitive response to crime.

This item appeared in the Features section of the January 21, 1994 issue.

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