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TRENTON
– A delegation from the state of Nevada,
including legislators, an associate chief
justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, and
family court judges, are in New Jersey to
attend a two-day working session designed
to help Nevada replicate New Jersey’s
success in juvenile detention reform.
New
Jersey First Lady Mary Pat Christie attended
the event, held at Thomas Edison State College
and addressed the delegation, praising the
state of New Jersey’s successes.
In
April 2004, New Jersey was selected as an
official replication site for the Annie
E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention
Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) and awarded
an annual grant of up to $200,000 by the
foundation. As the lead agency, the New
Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission (JJC)
worked in partnership with the Judiciary,
and other state and local agencies through
the statewide Council on Juvenile Justice
System Improvement, which guides the statewide
initiative. Each participating county also
has a local county council that relies on
collaboration, leadership, and data to make
improvements in the county juvenile justice
system.
In
November 2008, New Jersey was named by the
Casey Foundation as the first JDAI model
state site in the country. With this designation,
New Jersey provides jurisdictions with an
example of how to successfully implement
juvenile justice system reform. Through
funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
three states, Indiana, Missouri and Minnesota,
have already sent delegations to New Jersey
to learn about statewide JDAI implementation.
“Every
day, in every state, too many young people
are held in secure detention centers unnecessarily
because no other options exist,” stated
Attorney General Paula Dow. “As a
result of implementing the principles of
JDAI, we are changing our juvenile justice
system and changing young lives without
negative consequences to public safety.
It is our pleasure to share our experiences
with the state of Nevada.”
A
primary goal of JDAI is to make sure that
secure detention is used only to ensure
that serious and chronic youthful offenders
are detained, and that effective alternatives
are available for other youths who can be
safely supervised in the community while
awaiting final court disposition. The initiative
provides a framework of strategies that
help reduce the inappropriate use of secure
juvenile detention, while maintaining public
safety and court appearance rates. A major
focus of the work is to reduce the disparate
use of detention for minority youth.
Juvenile
detention is a temporary placement of a
youth accused of a delinquent act, while
awaiting the final outcome of his or her
case in court. The purpose of detention
is to house youths who, by virtue of their
alleged offenses or documented prior histories,
pose a serious public safety or are thought
to be flight risk.
“Due
to the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative,
New Jersey continues to make great strides
in reducing the unnecessary use of juvenile
detention, while maintaining community safety,”
said Veleria N. Lawson, the executive director
of the Juvenile Justice Commission. “New
Jersey is proud to be the Annie E. Casey
Foundation’s model state and to help
other states expand JDAI throughout their
states.”
In
April 2010, the JJC released the JDAI Annual
Data Report for 2009, which demonstrates
that JDAI is safely reducing the unnecessary
use of secure detention for New Jersey’s
youth. The report documents annual trends
in the use of county-operated juvenile detention
centers. Currently, 14 counties are participating
in JDAI in New Jersey including: Atlantic,
Camden, Essex, Hudson, Monmouth, Bergen,
Burlington, Mercer, Ocean, Union, Passaic,
Somerset, Middlesex and Cumberland. The
JDAI Annual Data Report presents information
for the 11 New Jersey JDAI sites that were
active throughout 2009.
- Comparing
the year prior to JDAI implementation
in each site to 2009, across all eleven
sites, the average daily population has
decreased by 42.9%.
- On
any given day, there were 288 fewer youth
in secure detention, with youth of color
accounting for 88.7% of this drop.
- Across
all eleven JDAI sites, more than four
thousand fewer youth were admitted to
detention in 2009, as compared to each
site’s last year prior to JDAI,
a decrease of 47.5%.
- Over
the past year alone, all JDAI sites reduced
the total number of young people admitted
to detention for a technical violation
of probation, for a combined reduction
of 21.0%.
- Across
these sites, an average of just 3.7% of
youth were discharged from a detention
alternative program as the result of a
new delinquency charge.
- Finally,
the number of girls in detention on any
given day has decreased by 60.0% across
the eleven sites.
To
view the JDAI 2009 Annual Report and for
more information on JDAI, please visit:
www.nj.gov/oag/jjc/localized_programs_jdai.html.
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