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| Juvenile reform can't be allowed to slip |
| By shreveporttimes.com |
| Published: 05/26/2009 |
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Juvenile justice reform advocates may see a shell game in the state taking dollars from one large detention facility and moving them to another warehouse for young offenders. But the sad reality is that our will for juvenile justice reform apparently is only as deep as our pockets. Budget cuts have short-circuited reform plans to add more community-based detention homes, a more promising sentencing alternative for rehabilitating young offenders. Instead, a reform commission has been told, savings that came from downsizing the Jetson Center for Youth near Baker went to add more secure-care beds at the Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe. "We've moved the shells to another part of the state," observed one member of the Juvenile Justice Implementation Commission in an account in the Baton Rouge Advocate. Caddo Juvenile Judge Paul Young was equally blunt in an e-mail exchange with The Times. "A Legislature and a governor cannot be serious about public safety unless they are willing to tell taxpayers the hard truth — that an effective juvenile justice system requires adequate funding ... regardless of the economic circumstances of the moment." A dependable source of revenue is needed, despite one Office of Juvenile Justice official's statement she would try and accomplish reforms despite the cuts. The response from commission member Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu: "There's no possible way that those budget cuts will move us in the direction of reform." Expanding the move to group homes would have been the latest installment in a reform movement that began in earnest this decade, particularly with the 2004 closing of the notorious criminal incubator at Tallulah. Working with child advocates such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco a year earlier had taken juvenile prisons away from the state Corrections Department, creating the Office of Youth Development. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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