March, 27, 2006

Dear Editor:

Tyler Hill's March 24th article on juvenile justice in Connecticut struck a cord with the Association of Private Correctional and Treatment Organizations. Known as the trade association for the private prison companies, our organization nevertheless 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

ByB TYLER HILL
Staff Reporter
Published Friday, March 24, 2006

A committee vote in the Connecticut General Assembly could bring the state one step closer to the rest of the nation in its policies regarding the prosecution of juvenile offenders.

Connecticut is one of only three states, along with New York and North Carolina, that automatically prosecute all 16- and 17-year-old offenders as adults. If the bill under debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee -- which has been lobbied for by Yale Law School students -- passes into law, though, Connecticut's juvenile justice system will take responsibility for the prosecution of such individuals. Minors who have reached the age of 16 have been automatically placed in the adult justice system in Connecticut since the early 1970s, said Abby Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, which is working with other organizations to lobby in support of the bill raising the age of offenders who are tried in the adult justice system.

"It is dangerous when you try young people in the adult system because the philosophy of the juvenile system is very different from the adult system," she said. "The adult system is purely punitive." Anderson said approximately 13,000 juvenile offenders were tried as adults in Connecticut last year for both major and minor offenses. While the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance has been vocal in its public campaign to get this issue on the front burner of the state's legislative agenda, another organization, Connecticut Voices for Children, has worked with students from Yale Law School to lobby members of the general assembly. The Juvenile Justice Team of the Legislative Advocacy Clinic at the Law School has worked closely with Connecticut Voices to bring the issue to the attention of legislators, team director Theresa Sgobba LAW '07 said.

"We want to bring Connecticut in line with other states," she said. "The juvenile system is designed to be not as punitive. It is rehabilitative." The law students have placed legislators into three groups based on their probability of voting in support of the bill and placed calls to all the senators they thought they might