CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY ON THE 54,000 CHILDREN INCARCERATED IN YOUTH PRISONS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES
As prepared and read into the congressional record at ~10:20am EST, JULY 15, 2015 » https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/criminal-justice-reform-part-ii/
SUBMITTED BY LIZ RYAN OF THE YOUTH FIRST INITIATIVE
“Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the Youth First! Initiative. My name is Liz Ryan and I am the President and CEO of the Youth First! Initiative.
“I'd like to start by briefly highlighting a case of a youth in the justice system. Kalief Browder, a sixteen-year-old boy from the Bronx, was arrested in the spring of 2010 and accused of stealing a backpack.[1] He was automatically charged as an adult. He could not afford to pay the $3,000 bail so he was held at the jail at Rikers Island. He was assigned a public defender and because of the backlogged courts, he was at Rikers for three years awaiting trial. He was beaten and starved by guards. For a year during his stay at Rikers, he was placed in solitary confinement. In 2013 the charges were dismissed. After he was released, he struggled to go to school. His story became public last fall in a story in The New Yorker. He took his life on June 6, 2015.[2]
“Kalief Browder’s tragic death underscores the most pressing issues that we are facing in juvenile justice: The overuse of incarceration of youth in the justice system; The prosecution of youth in adult courts; and the profound unfairness, inequities, and racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system.
OVERUSE OF INCARCERATION OF YOUTH
“In the U.S. on any given day, there are nearly 80,000 youth in a detention or correctional facility. Like Kalief Browder, most of these youth do not pose a serious threat to public safety. They are exposed to harm while incarcerated such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, and over-reliance on isolation and restraints. Kalief Browder’s case underscores that youth in adult jails and prisons are especially at risk of abuse.
“Research shows that by placing youth in correctional settings, it increases the likelihood that youth will reoffend. For example, one study shows that within three years of release from a youth prison, roughly 75% of youth are rearrested and 45 to 72 percent are convicted of a new offense.[3]
“The costs of detaining and incarcerating youth runs in the billions. States and localities spend over $6 billion a year to detain and incarcerate youth.
“By contrast, community-based alternatives to incarceration could more effectively serve youth and at substantially less cost. Community-based programs cost $75 per day in contrast to $241 per day for incarcerating a youth.[4]
PROSECUTION OF YOUTH IN ADULT CRIMINAL COURT
“A second pressing issue is the prosecution of youth in adult criminal court. Kalief Browder was one of the estimated 250,000 youth who are prosecuted in adult criminal court every year.[5]
“Contrary to popular perceptions, the overwhelming majority of youth who enter adult criminal court, and even those who are ultimately convicted, are not there for the serious, violent crimes.
“For example, in a report[6] about youth in adult court in Baltimore, Maryland, the study showed that nearly three quarters (68%) of the youth charged as adults were either transferred back to the juvenile system or had their cases dismissed outright.
“The research demonstrates unequivocally that trying and sentencing children in adult court decreases public safety. That is why the overwhelming consensus of professional organizations is that youth should never be automatically prosecuted in the adult criminal court and should be removed from adult jails and prisons.[7]
“And that is also why the U.S. Attorney General's Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence recommended against prosecuting youth in adult courts.[8]
UNFAIRNESS, INEQUITIES, RACIAL & ETHNIC DISPARITIES
“A third key issue underscored in Kalief Browder's case is the pervasive unfairness, inequities, and racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system.
“Youth of color are treated much more harshly and punitively in the justice system than white youth. Youth of color are much more likely to be arrested, formally processed in the justice system, detained in juvenile detention centers, incarcerated in youth prisons, and transferred to adult criminal court than white youth, even when charged with similar offenses.
“It is not because youth of color commit more crime than white youth. Results from self-report surveys indicate otherwise.
“Unfortunately the research is now showing that racial and ethnic disparities in the incarceration of youth are on the rise.
“The good news is that we now have a unique window opportunity for reform of the juvenile justice system because:
There is now a rich body of research on adolescent development and evidence-informed programs that effectively reduce juvenile delinquency.
Public opinion polling shows that the public strongly supports juvenile justice reforms.
And in the last decade, nearly half the states have enacted reforms in the last decade to reduce the automatic prosecution of youth in adult criminal court, increase the age of criminal responsibility, and/or remove youth from adult jails and prisons. These states include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
“In addition, a handful of states have enacted reforms to close youth prisons and reallocate resources to community-based alternatives to incarceration. These states include Texas, Ohio, California, New York, Alabama, and the District of Columbia.
“To build on these state reforms and prevent tragedies such as Kalief Browder’s death, Congress could:
Accelerate state reforms by supporting states in shifting their resources from incarceration to evidence-informed, community-based, non-residential alternatives to incarceration;
Reauthorize and strengthen the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA);
Support states in increasing the age of criminal court responsibility to age 18;
Provide adequate resources for states; and
Engage directly impacted youth and their families.
“Altogether, these reforms would ultimately contribute to reductions in federal prison spending.
“I applaud this committee for considering these issues. Thank you for your time and consideration.”
[1] Gonnerman, Jennifer. “Before the Law.” October 6, 2014. The New Yorker. New York, New York.
[2] Gonnerman, Jennifer. “Kalief Browder: 1993-2015.” June 7, 2015. The New Yorker. New York, New York.
[3] No Place for Kids. (2011) Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation.
[4] Safely Home. (2014). Washington, D.C.: Youth Advocate Programs, Inc.
[5] Daugherty, Carmen (2013). State Trends: Legislative Victories from 2011-2013 Removing Youth form the Adult Criminal Justice System. Washington, D.C.: Campaign for Youth Justice.
[6] Just Kids: Baltimore’s Youth in the Adult Criminal Justice System (2011). Baltimore, MD: Just Kids Maryland.
[7] Snapshot of National Organizations’ Policy Statements on Youth in the Adult Criminal Justice System. (2012) Washington, D.C.: Campaign for Youth Justice.
[8] US Attorney General’s Task Force Report on Children Exposed to Violence. (2012). Washington, DC.
**Images Courtesy of Richard Ross | http://www.juvenile-in-justice.com
