March 23, 2006

Dear Editor:

John Pirro's 3/20 article "Treating convicted teens as juveniles" deals with a critical subject. The Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations, the trade association for the private prison industry, agrees that appropriate care, custody, treatment, education, and rehabilitation for juvenile offenders should almost always occur in a place other than an adult prison.

Juvenile crime is often sparked by poverty, poor self-esteem, illiteracy, and addiction to drugs or alcohol. The offenders are often victims of physical or sexual abuse. It is worth our time, effort, and money necessary to prevent losing a young person to a life of crime, and then having to pay for the victim costs, trial costs, and incarceration costs.

Many of your readers will remember the TV commercial that had the line, "you pay me now . or you pay me later." This is the situation with juvenile justice: we pay now, or we pay later. The numbers show that it is never less costly than when the youth first offends. When he reaches the adult prison system, it is often too late to save him.

We hope the legislature will weigh the issues and decide that our young people are worth the cost.

Sincerely,
 

 
Paul Doucette
Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations
www.apcto.org

By John Pirro THE NEWS-TIMES

Joanne Davidson of Danbury had nowhere else to turn when her 17-yearold heroin-addicted daughter began stealing from family and neighbors to feed her habit. Short-term rehab all the Davidsons' medical insurance would cover had failed. So she and her husband made the gut-wrenching decision to have their daughter arrested for taking their car. Their hope was the courts would mandate enrollment in a long-term treatment program. Weeks later, Joanne Davidson said her daughter, "a middle-class kid who is not very street-wise at all," is in pretrial detention at an adult prison in Niantic, the state's only facility for holding adolescent females.

Although her daughter is in a unit with other young offenders, Davidson said they aren't kept away from adult prisoners at meal times and during recreational periods.

With her husband too ill to work and Davidson holding down two jobs to pay the bills, incarceration seemed like the best way to get their daughter off drugs, Joanne Davidson said. "We had no other way to keep her safe, but we had no idea that this waswhat she was going into," Joanne Davidson said.

As unhappy as the Davidsons' situation is, at least it's possible their daughter could get into a treatment program as her case moves through the court. For 16- and 17-year-old offenders who have already been convicted, there is no such hope, said Abby Anderson of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance.

Sixteen-year-olds aren't allowed to drive their cars between midnight and 5 a.m. Seventeen year- olds are too young to vote, she said. So they shouldn't be incarcerated with older offenders for crimes that would have resulted in "slap-on-the wrist" penalties had they been committed by adults, according to Anderson. "People assume it's being tough on crime, but what you're doing is throwing these kids away," Anderson said. "Studies show that kids who are put into the adult system re-offend quicker and more seriously."

For the second consecutive year, the Connecticut General Assembly is considering a bill that would permit the courts to treat 16- and 17-year-olds who are convicted of a variety of non-violent crimes as juvenile offenders. The bill, proposed by Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, would still allow prosecution in Superior Court of teens accused of serious felonies, such as armed robbery, rape and murder.

While Davidson realizes the bill isn't going to help her daughter, she said it highlights the lack of adequate state facilities and programs to house young offenders, especially girls. "This situation is horrendous. When people are looking for help, this is what they get," she said. Connecticut is one of only three states that still attempt to incarcerate persons under age 18 as adults for minor offenses. The other two are New York and North Carolina.

The Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance claims that each year, about 10,000 16-and 17-year-olds are prosecuted in Superior Court. About 80 percent are charged with crimes such as disorderly conduct, simple assault, vandalism, drug abuse and driving under the influence. The remainder of the offenses include burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny and arson.

Some legal experts agree it makes no sense to treat these teens as adults. "We've got all these different ages, but we don't have one cohesive notion as to when a young person achieves an adult level of responsibility," said Danbury attorney Scott Chamberlain. "Anyone who has a teenager knows they don't possess an adult's responsibility, and there are now studies that say their brains are wired differently than adults."

Until 1971, the state treated everyone under age 18 as a juvenile. Last year, lawmakers took a first step back toward that practice by making 16-and 17- year-olds eligible for youthful offender status in Superior Court. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, bars police from releasing the names of persons under 18 who are charged with crimes and provides for closed court hearings. The goal is to not to permanently ruin the reputations of young people who commit crimes.

Judicial officials last year estimated that extending juvenile court treatment to those under 18 will cost the state millions of dollars a year and increase caseloads by 50 percent. But proponents said the plan ultimately will prove cost-effective. "It's always more expensive to do something than nothing," Anderson said. "But in the long run, it will be less expensive, because you're not creating as many lifetime criminals and you're helping more kids to become successful members of society."

Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano said he has many reservations about the bill, one being the juvenile justice system is already "grossly under-funded and understaffed." Increasing the workload by adding thousands of new cases to the mix would make the juvenile justice system even less effective, he said. "We are also seeing an upswing in violence in urban areas, and statistics show that people who are involved are younger than they have ever been. This isn't an appropriate time to be creating more leniency," Morano said.

But Danbury Public Defender Robert Field said treating cases of all those under 18 the same would allow the court system to function more efficiently. "Right now, we have to clear the courtroom and seal the records when a youth offender case comes up, and it delays the adult cases," Field said. "If Connecticut handled them like other states, we wouldn't have those delays, and it would seem things would go a lot smoother," he said.