Bernalillo County Report Highlights 10 Years of Successful Reform

From left: Cil Robin­son, Mon­tana State JDAI-DMC Coor­di­na­tor; Jeanne Mas­ter­son, Chief Pro­ba­tion Offi­cer, Bernalil­lo Coun­ty, New Mex­i­co; and Susan Alke­ma, Spe­cial Mas­ter, Bernalil­lo Coun­ty, New Mexico.

Bernalil­lo Coun­ty, New Mex­i­co, reduced aver­age dai­ly deten­tion pop­u­la­tion at its Youth Ser­vices Cen­ter by almost half and saved tax­pay­ers near­ly $5 mil­lion, accord­ing to a report sum­ma­riz­ing the county’s suc­cess over a 10-year period.

Small­er, Smarter and More Strate­gic: Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform in Bernalil­lo Coun­ty was com­piled by the county’s JDAI team. The 24-page report cov­ers fis­cal year 2000 through fis­cal year 2010.

The deten­tion pop­u­la­tion dropped from a dai­ly aver­age of 114 in 2000 to 63 in 2010, the report said. The over­all num­ber of youth pre­sent­ed for deten­tion book­ing fell from 4,335 in 2000 to 2,278 in 2010 and refer­rals to Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion dropped from 10,100 to 6,570.

Alter­na­tives to deten­tion saved tax­pay­ers $4,742,529 from fis­cal year 2004 to fis­cal year 2010. Sav­ings from those pro­grams totaled an esti­mat­ed $946,089 in fis­cal year 2010 alone, the report said.

Some oth­er find­ings include:

• Since FY ​’08, the num­ber of refer­rals sent to the Children’s Court Attor­ney fell by approx­i­mate­ly 47%.
• The num­ber of youth tak­en into cus­tody and booked at the Bernalil­lo Coun­ty Youth Ser­vices Cen­ter decreased 36% from 2000 to 2010.
• The num­ber of peti­tions filed decreased 45%.
• The num­ber of pro­ba­tion vio­la­tions decreased 30% from 2000 through 2010.
• Felony offens­es referred to Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion decreased 11.8% from 1999 through 2010.
• Mis­de­meanor offens­es referred to Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion decreased 30.4%.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Doug Mitchell.