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| Juvenile justice faces 67% cut in Colorado |
| By Denver Post |
| Published: 03/08/2004 |
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Thousands of troubled Colorado youths will end up on the streets without supervision under a proposed $6 million cut in the state's $8.9 million juvenile justice program, judicial officials say. The deep reduction would result in few or no services for the 2,868 juveniles currently monitored and assisted through community-based programs across the state, said various judicial officials who are protesting the cuts. Those youths include ones awaiting trial for violent crimes, substance abusers, gang members, probation violators and sex offenders. The proposed budget cut follows previous spending reductions on juvenile services as well as caps on how many youth offenders can be placed with the state. "The impact of this will be huge," said Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter, president of the Colorado District Attorneys Council. "We are losing the ability to evaluate and place juvenile offenders in effective programs, which puts both kids and public safety at risk," Ritter said. To balance the budget, the legislature's Joint Budget Committee on Feb. 18 recommended the cuts in juvenile justice system funding, known as Senate Bill 94. "We've had to cut everywhere we can," the committee's chairman, Brad Young, said last Wednesday. "It's a situation - like it or not - where we look at programs and services and the decisions we have to make are absolutely, without a doubt, what the state of Colorado has to do." The budget committee's estimates call for $194 million in cuts in the 2004-05 general fund budget of about $5.6 billion. "This is just the start, truly," Young said, alluding to future cuts. The recommendations will be presented later this month to the legislature as a blueprint for spending on state operations. Meanwhile, district attorneys, judges and law-enforcement officials are rallying to save the funding. |
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