OUR VIEW: Pay attention to kid justice
November 1, 2017
Learning the facts about recreation
November 1, 2017
In Louisiana and throughout the U.S. reforms are underway to keep children accused of non-violent and petty crimes from being locked up in secure juvenile detention centers that amount to little more than jails for kids.
But in Terrebonne Parish, while the raw numbers of children booked into its facility are down, the percentage breakdowns are alarming child advocates and juvenile justice experts.
More than two-thirds of the 31 children who entered the Terrebonne Parish Juvenile Justice Complex in September were charged with misdemeanors for which adults would likely receive a summons rather than immediate incarceration. The average stay in detention is between six and ten days, according to the center’s statistics.
A total of 588 children walked through the doors of the detention facility in 2016 — either after arrest or after their first court appearance — while the number of felony cases opened in juvenile court was nearly half that.
Children charged with crimes like disturbing the peace or simple battery, which most often result in a misdemeanor summons for adults, have drawn pre-trial detention stays lasting six to ten days on the average. Some are booked in immediately after arrest on the whim of a police officer. Others are locked up after violating probation with another petty offense.
Parish officials profess a desire to help children as much as they can, but accept detention as a key element of their strategies. They therefore continue the use of policies more likely to result in incarceration for petty offenses.
· A preset bail schedule is employed for children brought to the detention center door by officers, which may conflict with the state statute governing how bonds for children are determined.
· Desire by parents for detention stays are respected and often accommodated, even though “teaching a lesson” is not one of the criteria state law recognizes as a reason for denial of bail.
· Detention staff continue to shear the hair of boys — but not girls — a practice rarely employed in Louisiana anymore that child advocates say is demeaning and counter-productive.
· Bail for youth who test positive for drugs is doubled, increasing the potential that the child will remain locked up for a longer period of time.
· Parents are not proactively informed by detention center staff that bail can be posted before a child initially sees a judge, increasing the potential for overnight stays.
· Broad power granted to police officers to decide if a non-violent child gets a ticket and a trip to his parents, or a stay in detention.
· Rejection of tools that could help officials at the detention center to set a bond based on objective criteria and a scoring system.
· Lack of such scoring tools may place the detention center at odds with the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, which licenses the place. A DCFS standard requires that centers limit admission to children at risk for committing serious offenses or not appearing for court if sent home.
Advocates for children acknowledge that detention is necessary for those who pose a danger to the community or for whom there is no other alternative. But they also caution that study after study over the past decade and longer has proved that children who are systematized and securely detained are more likely to re-offend, to commit more serious crimes as children and as adults, and that communities are therefore less safe and out the money that’s been spent in the process.
Rachel Gassert, policy director for the New Orleans-based Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, an organization that played a major role in aiding Louisiana juvenile justice reform efforts during recent legislative sessions, says children with no history of violence do not belong in detention centers, and that everything possible should be done to avoid the potential.
“Detaining kids unnecessarily is harmful for young people and a waste of taxpayer resources,” Gassert said. “Kids should not be detained unless absolutely necessary, unless they pose a risk to public safety. If they are detained they should be released as soon as possible. Every day in detention is putting that child at risk, and puts the public at risk because of the potential for higher recidivism.”
“WE SAVE LIVES HERE”
Houma City Court Judge Matt Hagen, hears almost all juvenile cases in Terrebonne Parish.
The 52-year-old jurist, father of two daughters, served as a prosecutor in Houma City Court, which has jurisdiction over juvenile cases, when now-retired Judge Jude Fanguy was on the bench.
“I see firsthand the issues and problems that affect both our children and the victims of crime in this parish,” he said when announcing his candidacy in 2014, after Fanguy announced his statute-mandated retirement.
After graduating Vandebilt Catholic High he earned a bachelor’s degree from Nicholls State University, then a law degree at Southern University Law Center. Prior to being elected City Court Judge, Hagen was an assistant district attorney in adult court, and then a prosecutor in juvenile court.
He stands by use of detention as a behavior modifier, maintaining that they are among tools that help him better administer justice in the juvenile court setting.
“I have a finite amount of time, until they are 17 as the law stands today, to do what we can to teach the child about decisions and consequences, and that the choices they make in life now, if they are bad choices, will have certain consequences now,” Judge Hagen said. “If they make these same choices as an adult the end result is something far different. I would rather they learn about these consequences as a juvenile so that they are not making these same mistakes and exposing themselves to long-term jail sentences. A lot of these kids get it, and some have every reason not to not succeed but they still succeed. We save lives here, that’s what we are doing.”
Most of the cases that appear on Hagen’s docket are misdemeanor offenses. Although the specific ratio varies on a monthly basis, misdemeanors outpaced felonies in juvenile cases each month from Jan. through Aug. of this year. Felonies made up just over 20 percent of the docket and misdemeanors just over 61 percent. The remainder were status offenses such as truancy and curfew violations.
Trends within those numbers are consistent with those from prior years.
The 2016 docket included 695 misdemeanors, of which 284 were disturbing the peace or criminal mischief. Felonies numbered 147 and there were 133 status offenses. Hagen said the numbers don’t tell the whole story and
Detention numbers for 2016 are not comparable to those that relate to cases before Hagen, for several reasons. One is that the detention center takes in some children from other parishes, not a lot but enough to make comparisons inaccurate and suspect.
On one day last week there were 17 children in the detention center, including two from Ascension Parish and two from St. James. A Terrebonne 12-year-old deemed “uncontrollable” had been in for three days, cited for contempt of court.
TRUANCY AND CURSING
The numbers do show some questionable placements. A 15-year-old was in for three days for truancy. A 13-year-old, whom detention records showed had been held for ten days on a charge of disturbing the peace by cursing, had a $500 bond that nobody had posted. What alternatives to incarceration might be better choices for those children cannot be determined without a closer look at the individual cases.
Gassert and other advocates say the dangers of unnecessary detention outweigh the reasons why a 13-year-old should be jailed, noting that such stays can erode educational success, enhance mental health issues and introduce non-criminal kids to a new set of friends who have committed serious crimes of violence.
Nonetheless, Hagen said, parents occasionally prefer that a child experience detention, hoping it will modify problem behavior.
“Sometimes a parent would like the child to sit a couple of more days to earn a lesson,” Hagen said. “He could appear before me again in five or six days, then when he is released we can set the actual arraignment three weeks down the line.”
The Louisiana Children’s Code Article 824 prescribes the criteria for setting bail in juvenile cases. The law does not list using detention as a lesson — with or without the request of parents — among its criteria.
It does say the court is required to consider five factors. They are the nature and circumstances of the delinquent act, weight of the evidence, prior delinquency record and financial ability of the child and family to post money. A child’s failure to appear at some prior hearing, violation of probation or release conditions and staying away from home without consent, habitual disobedience and the potential of danger to the public if a release occurs are also factors to be considered. The law does not list using detention as a lesson with or without a request from parents in the criteria.
“The law says a judge shall take all of them into consideration,” Gassert said. “Those criteria can also support not detaining.”
“I KNOW MY KIDS”
In a growing number of jurisdictions the default is personal recognizance — release without bail — based on a scoring system. Primary among the indicators in such a system are questions of whether the child poses a threat to the community, seriousness of the offense and likelihood the child will return to court as ordered, as well as ability of the family to pay. Various factors are added up, each with different point values, based on the individual child’s situation. A score above a certain number would preclude release and require booking into detention.
Some of the methods employed by other jurisdictions like the points system may be needed in those places, Hagen said, because judges don’t always get to know much about the children who come before them.
“I am a judge who is engaged,” he explains,
Judge Hagen has his own scoring system of sorts, although it is not reliant on algorithms or formulas. In some cases, he said in an interview last week, he may impose a bond initially and then drop it to a lower amount or waive bond altogether, depending on a variety of circumstances.
His own knowledge of the children he sees as well as of their families, Hagen said, are invaluable tools for dispensing a brand of justice that can benefit youngsters in the long run.
“A lot of our kids are repeat offenders,” Hagen said. “Many have been with me before, I know them on a first-name basis. I am seeing a kid within 24 hours of his arrest usually and then I have the benefit of an entire file. I have prior files with medical assessments, psychological evaluations, prior histories of interactions with the parents when they come to court, school records. It would be hard to argue that I am not the best person along with my social service director to assess and evaluate whether a child might tend to re-offend. I know my kids. I will know if a kid has gone through some great trauma. I will know if a kid has gone through PTSD, if he saw his mother get killed, if one of my juveniles was a victim of sexual abuse. These are my kid and they know I care about them.”
The judge usually doesn’t get a say in cases where a police officer brings a child to the detention center immediately after arrest, He does receive and carefully reviews a read-out faxed to him early each morning of who has been brought in the day or night before, and why.
Many deputies and police officers prefer when possible to issue summonses to children for misdemeanor offenses. In the case of adults, it is because there is so little room at the jail in Ashland. There is usually room for juveniles at the detention center, but individual officers say they would prefer not to jail a child unless he or she has been disrespectful or is otherwise incorrigible.
But school resource officers — SRO’s — are allowed broad berth.
“The SRO’s have wide discretion to decide whether they issue a summons or do an arrest,” Hagen said. “I recognize that and support their decisions. If an officer makes that arrest and brings the juvenile to the detention center then that is where the process begins.”
BOND FLEXIBILITY
A bond schedule that covers nearly every offense imaginable is kept at the detention center. It was used in the past by Judge Fanguy, and Hagen professes faith in its value. The presets, which include specific bonds for specific offenses, include an order that in cases where a child has failed a drug test or has returned while on probation, the bond is doubled.
Parents who may not want their child to spend a night or two in detention before seeing a judge. Detention staff can use the bond schedule in those cases. But parents are not always aware that the choice is available. There is no disclosure that bond can be posted as a matter of policy when the parents speak to detention staff.
“We don’t volunteer that,” said detention center director Joseph Harris. “It’s not something that we give out automatically.”
In most cases, Harris said, parents are informed of a bond once the first court appearance occurs.
Once a child appears before Hagen, there is an opportunity to adjust a bond up or down. The judge recognizes that even the lowest bonds can be difficult for families to come up with, and in many cases he will lower the bond or even order that the child be released on his or her recognizance while court dates are pending, once he knows that child is stable.
He acknowledged that in cases where children test positive for drugs, he will deny bond until they test clean, with no drugs in their system. It is not a punitive measure he said, but one that allows a baseline for future drug tests he will likely require.
Critics note that if a child is released through objective scoring, there is plenty the judge can do once that child returns to court on the appointed date four or six weeks down the road. The preset bonds and Hagen’s overall bond policies, advocates maintain, amount to a broom stuck through the spokes of the juvenile justice system’s wheels.
The policies in Terrebonne Parish are but one component of a farther-reaching juvenile justice system. In Louisiana juvenile judges have the power to send children who are a adjudged a threat due to violent criminal activity or repeated offenses of other types into secure, state-run facilities that function as prisons for kids during a long term of confinement.
The detention center is where youngsters bound for the state system are kept pending room for their admission by the state. This is one reason why juvenile detention is seen as such an inappropriate alternative for children whose offenses are not violent or serious.
ALTERNATIVES REJECTED
Ultimately, child advocates say, the numbers of detention commitments, short or long, are what demonstrate a community’s commitment to alternatives. Tools are available for Terrebonne, which is under consideration for designation as one of Louisiana’s six Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiatives jurisdictions, and one of more than 300 nationwide.
Developed by child advocates at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, JDAI makes resources available to communities. The JDAI designation can also help communities access grants from other foundations that can further help children. JDAI communities may accept or reject various alternatives to detention, and experts are available for guidance purposes. Architects of the JDAI program are aware that Terrebonne has been struggling with the concepts in some respects.
Bart Lubow, now a juvenile justice consultant in Lake Charles, was a JDAI founder, and is well aware of Terrebonne Parish’s juvenile issues.
“The indications are of a jurisdiction that doesn’t really agree with most of the JDAI principles and practices,” Lubow said. “So why would they want to be allied with JDAI when they are so far from the mainstream of what JDAI decides to do, of what 300 jurisdictions nationwide have done. Old, out-dated and ineffective ideas continue to be at the heart of the policies and practices, whether it is shaving kids’ heads or the doubling of bail bonds or the use of bail in general. What is at the heart of such approaches to juvenile justice is that this is what most of the field has left behind. These policies have been abandoned by most systems around the country because they are ineffective in terms of improving public safety or helping kids in trouble get back on the right track. The question for the community is whether this is what you want for your kids that get in trouble. Is this the way? If the community answers “yes” then this is the system the community deserves.”
NEXT WEEK: A NEW PROGRAM OFFERS PROMISE
