Toni Walker’s years-long crusade has paid off, with passage of a state law that will stop sending teens under 18 to adult prisons.
Anyone who’s been following the efforts of Walker, a New Haven state representative, New Haven State Sen. Toni Harp and others knows that Connecticut is one of just three states in the country that incarcerates 16- and 17-year-olds in adult prisons, with adult offenders. But not everyone knows that, according to Walker, the state Department of Corrections has estimated that only 3 percent of these young people are dangerous.
“They’re borderline and end up falling on the wrong side of the system,” said Walker, who’s a social worker as well as a legislator. She said they need to get help on “the right side” rather than be treated like criminals, as they are under the current system.
The General Assembly passed the Raise the Age bill to move those young people back under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system. Gov. Jodi Rell threatened to veto it unless a budget to accommodate the necessary changes (estimated at $100 million) accompanied the bill. But then she agreed to sign it after all, just pushing the effective date off six months to 2010. (More on that below.)
That was one victory in a session that saw a mixed record for the criminal-justice reform agenda. Click here to read a round-up.
“Holding kids accountable is an important component of rehabilitation,” Walker said after the “Raise the Age” bill was signed. “There are still penalties in place for kids who commit crimes. But we will hold them accountable in a setting that’s designed to improve their behavior rather than exacerbate it. Sending kids to adult prisons is a great way to create adult criminals. Connecticut is now out of that business.”
Walker’s been in the General Assembly for five years, and has been working on this issue for much of that time. She and Harp co-chair the Juvenile Justice Planning and Implementation Committee (JJPIC), which looked at the number of kids involved in the system and the best services being offered around the country, and brought those people in to testify before the legislature about best practices.
One result is the creation of Family Service Centers under the new law. Under the current system, kids who are truant, or runaways, or hard to handle in other ways, but who have not broken any laws, are often shuttled into the criminal justice system because there’s no other place for them. The new family centers will offer parents who are at their wits’ end 24-hour respite services, and individual and family therapy.
Walker added that there needs to be closer collaboration between the juvenile justice system and the school system. “Almost every child in the correctional system has been suspended from school at least once,” she said, yet there’s almost no communication between the two institutions.
Walker said the $100 million estimated cost of putting 16- and 17-year-olds back in the juvenile system “is extremely misleading.” She said it came from the Department of Children and Families (with input from other state agencies). “Their predictions were if no children were turned out of the system and we just changed the age, then that would be the cost. But with the changes we are planning through the courts and through probation, the number of kids will be dramatically reduced by two-thirds. DCF seemed to think they would have 300 – 400 children going through the system, but we predict 120 [16- and 17-year-olds].” That’s in addition to the 9,000 to 10,000 other kids who go through the juvenile justice system annually.
Advocates of Raise the Age noted that the state’s chief administrative judge strongly supported the bill, along with the commissioner of the Department of Correction.
DCF also put in costs for building more buildings — local, smaller, better versions of the much-maligned Connecticut Juvenile Training School. Walker said that also contributes to the over-estimation of costs; she’s convinced the total number of youth who would go to such facilities is much smaller than previous estimates. She said the planning committee estimates the costs at about $35 million.
A Rell spokesman echoed Walker’s long-term economic argument: “Studies have shown that children who do time in adult jails are more likely to commit more violent crime than youthful offenders who are handled by the juvenile system. So the governor feels this new law is not only humane, but it also should save taxpayers in the long run by diverting vulnerable youth from criminal paths.”
Another significant change to the handling of criminals in which the general public has no awareness, input or influence as to the proceedings or outcome. Just a couple of do-gooders who think that these perps were just innocent chidren who made a bad choice that day,
Any 16 or 17 yr old charged as an adult was handled in that fashion for a reason. We're talking street-hardened thugs who commit brutal crimes and not children who shoplift a bar of candy. Keeping them in a juvenile system with a wrist slap for punishment just places the welfare of the community needlessly at risk. I'd like Ms, Walker to explain her actions to the family of that "kids" next victim.