This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
If there's one thing that drives a conservative crazy, it's watching government take the same ineffective actions and get the same disappointing results year after year.
Sadly, that's been the dominant pattern with our approach to juvenile justice in America, and the casualties are not just troubled youth and their families, but taxpayers as well.
The good news is that Utah is poised to break out of that paradigm and steer the state down a more productive path.
This session, the Legislature is considering House Bill 239, a package of reforms introduced by Rep. Lowry Snow designed to hold juvenile offenders accountable while ensuring they get the help they need to turn their lives around.
If adopted, this legislation will strengthen families, keep government costs in check and bring Utah in line with the latest evidence on what works to reduce recidivism among troubled youth. We support this bill and urge the Legislature to enact it this session.
The need for a new direction on the juvenile side could not be more compelling. Despite the best of intentions, Utah now operates a juvenile justice system that is not only expensive but is also plagued by a lack of consistent standards, a shortage of evidence-based services in the community and multiple other woes that produce disappointing results for public safety.
Despite heavy Utah taxpayer investment in out-of-home placements each year, Utah's juvenile recidivism rate is alarmingly high: Roughly half of all youth released from state custody are convicted of a new offense within two years. Think about that: a failure rate of more than 50 percent from state-funded programs that remove youth from their families and cost taxpayers as much as $127,750 per youth per year — 17 times more than probation.
Fortunately, last June, Gov. Gary Herbert, Chief Justice Matthew Durrant, House Speaker Greg Hughes and Senate President Wayne Niederhauser recognized the need for change and established the inter-branch Utah Juvenile Justice Working Group to develop recommendations for improvement.
Between June and November last year, the working group conducted an intensive review of the juvenile justice system, scrutinizing Utah data and gathering public input through more than 30 roundtable discussions with prosecutors, families, judges, victims, youth, probation officers and others.
The results of this review were troubling. The working group found that although most Utah kids enter the juvenile justice system for low-level offenses and are at low risk to re-offend, they get caught up in the system through court requirements like fines and fees, staying under court monitoring for an average of roughly three years before aging out.
Ultimately, the system makes them worse. A large proportion of lower-level youth removed from the home for the first time do not have any felonies in their history, and are removed not for committing crimes but for technical violations of court orders such as missing curfew, not paying fees or completing community service hours.
That's a problem because research shows that out-of-home placements do not improve outcomes for most youth and can even increase the likelihood of re-offending for certain kids.
To address these deficiencies, the Working Group developed a package of recommendations that now form the foundation of HB239. The proposals would focus the use of costly state-funded correctional beds on youth who pose the highest risk to public safety while providing the courts with effective local alternatives for youth living at home.
In addition, the bill would establish standards to ensure the right youth receive the right level of supervision and services for the right amount of time. The legislation also enhances government accountability by requiring that an oversight panel monitors the reforms to document progress and make sure the state stays on track.
Fortunately for Utah, other states, such as Texas, Ohio and Illinois, have shown that adopting reforms that ensure young offenders receive sanctions commensurate with their offenses can reduce the likelihood such juveniles will continue a life of crime. That not only saves taxpayer money, but also protects public safety and strengthens families.
While change can be challenging, sticking with an ineffective status quo that is producing disappointing outcomes is downright irresponsible. That's why we urge the Legislature to embrace juvenile justice reform and help more of Utah's young offenders fulfill their potential to lead productive, law-abiding lives.
Marc Levin is policy director of Right on Crime. Michael Melendez is director of policy at the Libertas Institute in Utah.