Los Angeles and New Jersey Steer Youth Away from Justice System

New poli­cies enact­ed in Los Ange­les Coun­ty and the state of New Jer­sey are the lat­est signs of grow­ing momen­tum for a dra­mat­ic shift in our nation’s juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems. The goal is to allow schools and com­mu­ni­ties — not the courts — to address most instances of youth mis­con­duct, and to reimag­ine how to sup­port and super­vise the small­er num­ber of young peo­ple who do enter the court system.

On Nov. 24, 2020, the L.A. Coun­ty Board of Super­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly approved a ground­break­ing plan to phase out the coun­ty pro­ba­tion department’s juve­nile divi­sion, con­tin­u­ing a shift from a mod­el based on sur­veil­lance and com­pli­ance to an approach cen­tered on youth devel­op­ment. To facil­i­tate this, L.A. Coun­ty will cre­ate a youth devel­op­ment depart­ment with an ini­tial bud­get of $75 mil­lion per year.

In New Jer­sey, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Gur­bir Gre­w­al issued a 33-page pol­i­cy direc­tive on Dec. 3, 2020, requir­ing police depart­ments through­out the state to expand and track their use of warn­ings and oth­er alter­na­tives to arrest. The direc­tive also encour­ages pros­e­cu­tors to han­dle the cas­es of youth accused of all but the most seri­ous offens­es out­side of the for­mal court system.

The changes are being craft­ed in response to evi­dence that arrest­ing and pros­e­cut­ing youth hin­ders their long-term suc­cess and increas­es the like­li­hood of sub­se­quent arrests. The evi­dence also shows that expand­ing juve­nile diver­sion is a key strat­e­gy for reduc­ing racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties, because youth of col­or cur­rent­ly receive far few­er oppor­tu­ni­ties for diver­sion than white youth.

“We hope the changes in L.A. Coun­ty and New Jer­sey rep­re­sent the lead­ing edge of a wide­spread move­ment in youth jus­tice to pro­mote healthy ado­les­cent devel­op­ment,” says Jaqui­ta Mon­roe, a senior asso­ciate at the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“That means keep­ing young peo­ple out of the for­mal jus­tice sys­tem unless they pose a sig­nif­i­cant threat to pub­lic safe­ty, and it means realign­ing pro­ba­tion to focus on youth devel­op­ment rather than rule com­pli­ance, min­i­mize con­fine­ment and con­nect youth to pos­i­tive sup­port in their communities.”

The changes in Los Ange­les and New Jer­sey rep­re­sent the clear­est sign to date that expand­ing diver­sion and trans­form­ing pro­ba­tion are grow­ing priorities.

In Los Ange­les, the recent vote rat­i­fied a plan devel­oped by a coun­ty-spon­sored Youth Jus­tice Work Group, which was led by advo­cates and com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The step comes on top of the coun­ty board’s 2019 sup­port for a plan to have coun­ty law enforce­ment agen­cies refrain from mak­ing arrests in as many as 80% of cas­es in which youth are appre­hend­ed for delin­quent con­duct, instead steer­ing young peo­ple to coun­ty-fund­ed and com­mu­ni­ty-led diver­sion programs.

“[L.A.] Coun­ty must resist a nar­ra­tive about these young peo­ple that does not leave space for hope and heal­ing and insist on a struc­ture that pro­motes pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment and reha­bil­i­ta­tion at all costs,” wrote coun­ty super­vi­sors Sheila Kuehl and Mark Rid­ley-Thomas in their motion to adopt the new plan.

In New Jer­sey, the new direc­tive ref­er­ences and builds upon the Casey Foundation’s Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive®. The first state in the nation to repli­cate the JDAI® mod­el statewide, New Jer­sey has reduced admis­sions to deten­tion by 80% since 2004.

“This direc­tive helps us take anoth­er step towards reha­bil­i­tat­ing young peo­ple by divert­ing them away from for­mal court pro­ceed­ings to com­mu­ni­ty, fam­i­ly and school sup­port sys­tems,” Gre­w­al said in a state­ment announc­ing the direc­tive. ​“If we can turn a youth away from the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem, we know they stand a much bet­ter chance of turn­ing their life toward suc­cess in the long run.”