This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Legislature has been handed another chance to spend some money now on a program that promises to save a lot more money — and a few lives — over the long run.
Lawmakers don't necessarily have a laudable record of follow-through on similar proposals in the past. Still, the package of juvenile court reforms that came out of the recommendations of the Utah Juvenile Justice Working Group deserves to be approved.
A House committee last week passed House Bill 239, a package of reforms that follows the whole theory of having a separate juvenile court system in the first place. That's the idea that young people who get into scrapes with the law still have a chance to turn their lives around, saving not only themselves and their families much grief but also saving taxpayers many millions of dollars.
The working group, made up of lawmakers, judges, court administrators, educators and law enforcement officers, ran the numbers and found out that far too many juveniles who have been charged with minor offenses spend three years or more negotiating a system that does, all too often, make things worse by taking them away from their families, their communities, their jobs and their schools.
The group concluded that juvenile offenders who are dealt with in the community, rather than being placed in detention centers or group homes, recover and avoid committing new crimes at about the same rate as those moved into an institutional setting. The difference is, the institutions cost some 17 times more per person than the community settings.
Part of the problem is that juvenile court judges often impose fines that are beyond the capacity of any minor to pay or unreasonably heavy community service requirements. All that accomplishes is keeping the juvenile in the expensive system for months or years longer when, according to the panel's research, smaller fines or service requirements that can be realistically paid or served have just as much effect, if not more, in discouraging re-offending.
All of this costs money, of course, in this case an estimated $9 million a year. Some county prosecutors object that there will be other costs as the bill requires more active participation of prosecutors and defense attorneys.
But with estimated savings of $11.6 million per year, plus the number of young lives turned around, it is well worth it.
The only real hesitation comes from the knowledge that Utah lawmakers have already passed a similar reform package for adult offenders, a package that has yet to bear fruit because the Legislature won't fully fund its community-based, recovery-oriented programs.
The juvenile justice version of reform should be approved. It should be fully funded. It should be given a fair chance to improve the lives of so many of us.