At Week's End; WKND #907 Juvenile Justice; 907; Juvenile Justice: Prevention or Punishment?

It's the end of innocence for New Mexico's children. Can baby -faced killers be saved or should we lock them up and throw away the air conditioner? Those issues next on At Weeksend. Welcome to At Weeksend. I'm Kate Nelson. They are the drive -by shooters, the gangbangers, the twisted young minds who fill our streets with fear. They are also the runaways. The alcohol addicted, the abused children who are lashing back at the system. Addressing the widely different needs of children in trouble with the law is an issue that promises to be devil next year's legislature. For more on that, Sarah Doyle has this background report. Juvenile crime is reportedly on the rise in New Mexico, with violent and property crimes leading the way. Bernalio County's pre -trial holding facility for youthful offenders is overcrowded by 30 percent. Construction is underway to increase sleeping quarters and classrooms, but officials there say much more is needed to meet the growing demand. The State Department of Children, Youth and

Families has issued a plan for handling that growth. The plan proposes a 12 million dollar increase in departmental funding. This money is earmarked for a new 50 -bed prison, a boot camp for first -time violent offenders, two work camps, and a reorganization of existing facilities. The Secretary of Children, Youth and Families, Heather Wilson, is holding town hall meetings statewide to gather public support for the proposals. But officials in Bernalio County's public defenders office say they focus too heavily on punishment. I think we need perhaps to get you know the public aware that locking up these kids is not the solution we have to go out there as citizens and try to do something else. I think we need started a younger rage. You know, we're seeing kids in the system now at 11 and 12 -year -olds who have been gang bangers since they were seven and eight years old. You know, what's wrong with our with our society that this is happening? A frustrated public is growing tired of violent crimes being committed by younger and younger offenders. Crimes which not long

ago were committed only by adults. Officials in the Bernalio County District Attorney's Office say they will prosecute and request adult sentences for severe crimes committed by juveniles. You know, if you break the law and get caught and come into the system, you're going to be prosecuted and if the if the offense is serious enough, it's violent enough and you're old enough then there's a good chance that our office will go for an adult sentence. Along those lines, Secretary Wilson's report seeks to hold kids accountable for their actions when they first get into trouble. Luanne McNamara, a victim's right advocate, agrees. Although Secretary Wilson has developed support for the juvenile justice plan, judicial officials say that that logic only goes so far. If you're looking at prisons to solve the problems you're missing the boat. I think the real answers are early in childhood, early in the life of the family.

I think if we diverge some money from building more prisons to enhancing communities, building better schools, community centers, revitalizing families will be so much better off. I heard the quote recently that it's better to build children than to repair adults and I think that's true and I think we're missing the boat by adding more police officers, more judges, more prosecutors, more prisons. The acid test will come this winter when legislators decide how much money to put into the problem and whether it should pay for more punishment or more prevention. Children using families department has done a new study under Heather Wilson and based on that study, we are making 180 degrees about face and we are now going to make, it appears to me, incarceration, the center point of juvenile justice in New Mexico. That is, although there will be some appropriations for prevention and intervention programs, the overwhelming majority of new money is now going to go towards incarceration.

Representative Mixorly predicts that during the coming session, the House Judiciary Committee will redirect money for juvenile corrections into prevention and treatment. Mixorly says that the next legislative session could determine the fate of New Mexico's juvenile justice system for years to come. Joining us today for a discussion of some of those issues are three people who play key roles in the juvenile justice system. They are State Senator Janice Pastor, Chairwoman of the Legislature's Courts, Corrections, and Criminal Justice Committee. She is an Albuquerque Democrat. Bob Cleval is the Assistant Chief Juvenile Probation Officer for Bernalio County and Heather Wilson is Governor Gary Johnson's Cabinet Secretary for the Children Youth and Families Department. Thank you all three for being here. Secretary Wilson, I'd like to open this up with you that 50 bed secure facility has drawn perhaps the most eye of this in some controversy. Tell us why do we need a one more prison

for juveniles? I think when we reviewed our system, we found that the weakest part of our system was actually at the front end when kids first start getting into trouble. And that's why we've put 50 % of all of the operating money that we're asking for at that front end to significantly expand juvenile community corrections. But that's not enough. We've had a 35 % increase in juvenile crime. Last year we had 2 ,400 kids arrested for violent offenses, not assault and battery, talking about manslaughter, homicide, very serious violent offenses. And even with all of those options and having leaned out the system over the last nine months and put kids in community programs where we can, I'm still 100 kids overcrowded in the facilities that we have today. We can't put kids in facilities if we aren't prepared to deal with them where they are. I think we need alternatives to corrections, but we also need to separate out kids, which means a secure facility for those who can't even be unwise. Why don't put those kids in the adult prisons? Because they are still amenable

to change in rehabilitation and we shouldn't give up on them if they are. There is some speculation perhaps that we have incarcerated too many kids that a lot of the kids who are in the two places we have are the springer and then the Y2DC here in Albuquerque that has both boys and girls. Yes. A lot of those kids could be in community programs. Perhaps springer could be retrofitted to handle severe violent kids. Why not just take advantage of the facilities we have? Well we are trying to take advantage of the facilities we have and it's true that there was a study done two years ago which suggested that 20 to 30 % of the kids could be handled in alternative programs. Since then we've had a significant increase in violent crime and we have put a lot more kids into community programs, particularly in the last nine months. We just can't handle this overcrowding so we need to strengthen those community programs and provide options for judges in communities for kids we can deal with safely. But the fact is we've got more and more kids who are predatory and violent even

in the open campus settings of our our boys school and we need to separate those kids out so that they're not they're not deluding what we can do for the others. Senator Pastor that that increasingly violent nature of juvenile criminals is hard to argue against how do you propose a dealing with those kids? There are some children who are increasingly violent and they need to be dealt within the system but the way to deal with that problem is not to build a new facility. It is as you say to retrofit springer. We have had on our legislative plate for a number of years important requests for building the front end programs and the after care programs for kids after they get out of facilities and we have failed to do that. The Anna E. Casey study that was commissioned by the previous secretary of this department does not recommend that we build secure facilities at this time and in fact there are very few states that have built so -called secure facilities. We have what are

called staff secure facilities and that's what springer is. The Anna E. Casey study shows that 30 % of the children now incarcerated in YDDC and springer should be out in the community with community placements if only they were there. That would solve the overcrowding problem and springer could be redesigned to address the problem of the violent children. That study was done in 1993. Since then we have had an increase in juvenile crime, eat more and more kids coming to our facilities and in the last nine months I have reduced overcrowding by 20%. I still have 100 more kids than I have beds for. What would you do to springer to redesign it? Would you put more secure beds there, more time out beds? How would you do it? I would remove children from there who are inappropriately grouped with children who are violent. But where would you put the violent kids? The violent kids should be in springer and some of the children who

are in springer today don't belong there. The statute gives the department the authority once a child is placed in their custody to move the child to any place that the placement is appropriate and the department has the flexibility to move kids out of springer who are there right now who are inappropriately placed with violent children. The problem is that we don't have the alternative programs for those kids. Bob, you see the kids as they're coming out of these institutions, correct? We see them before and when they return. What is your perception? Are they are they getting an incarceration that does some good? I think that we're finding that a lot of the kids coming out because of the overcrowding being the issue is they're not there long enough and because of overcrowding they're not being able to get the programming that they need because of just too many kids. What we are finding is when they do come out, in Albuquerque we've got an advantage at the other places in the state don't have is we have a lot of services that we can tap these kids into.

We use intensive parole for some of the kids who come out early on parole to our jurisdiction. I think what we are finding in Albuquerque though the majority of the kids that we finally have seen go to the boys school or to why did you see on commitments have been recycled over and over again they've exhausted their alternatives in the Albuquerque area and as Miss Wilson said we receive a thousand referrals a month from law enforcement. We have 1100 kids on probation. Our staff would argue that of the 1100 kids that we have on probation that we're plugging into all kinds of services at the same time while around probation that many of them probably could be committed. On behalf of the staff I think that the message that I can send here is that we haven't seen a change in additional beds programming that it's great to see Miss Wilson taking the approach in Senator Pastyrs and advocate for children to be here knowing that we're looking at trying to make the improvements in these areas. So to get to the question I think when the kids are coming out I don't think that

they're ready. I think that they need more services in the facilities. Do they all need to be in those facilities? Well the ones that we see coming from Albuquerque I believe they certainly do. We have exhausted many alternatives while they're on probation before they finally are committed to the boys school or to why did you see? One of the other main alternatives and equally controversial is of course the boot camp and I'm certain that it's hard for anyone to think that they wouldn't like to shave these kids heads, yell at them and make them do a lot of push -ups. But Secretary Wilson there's little scientific evidence that shows boot camps do anything to reduce recidivism, kids becoming criminals again to reduce prison crowding or that they cost any less. What are the benefits of having a boot camp? The cost I don't think is really much less for a boot camp per day and there are a lot of boot camps that I wouldn't want near the state of New Mexico. There are probably 40 boot camps statewide or rather nationwide and what we try to do is to look and see if there are boot camps that are effective

or leadership camps that are effective and as we did with all other programs to see if there are things we could bring here to New Mexico to reduce the overcrowding in our facilities and provide more options for judges. The reduction in cost is if a kid spends six months in a residential leadership academy as opposed to one year at springer even if it's a per day cost the same you've cut the cost in half there. But with respect to what we're looking at for a boot camp or kind of a boot camp there's a there's a leadership academy in New York that's that is it's not about yelling at kids if it what about yelling at kids most of these kids could stay at home and be yelled at. It's about taking kids who would otherwise be in a correctional facility and giving them a chance to use negative leadership skills and learn positive leadership skills. Challenge themselves build their own sense of accomplishment and self -esteem and self -discipline. The New York model that we're looking at of a leadership academy doesn't use punishment

it uses rewards and it's a very positive example of for some kids not all kids are going to benefit from that kind of program but I think we have some who are and rather than try to build more of what we have we wanted to get more options. When we talk about boot camp we generally are thinking of kids who need a good shock who need something very serious happening to them. The statistics show the worst gang bangers are 19 to 26 years old they're already out of your jurisdiction by then. This is boot camps or leadership academies this is not about shock incarceration you can't scare these kids and it's not about scaring them it's about trying to redirect their priorities give them a sense of self -discipline or discipline leading to self -discipline respect leading to self -respect and one of the other key components and the thing that this New York model is successful at is the transition back into the community because that really matters the after care. And all this research shows that is the key component. It is one of the key components. You just admitted to

a legislative committee yesterday you have no idea how you'll pay for the after care. No that's incorrect. The after care is in the operating budget for the second year running the boot camp. The question about after care is the New York model sends kids to New York City for the second six months and they live in the community and they have a day reporting program there in New York City. The issue is how do we do that in New Mexico? Do we have it in one city or do we have a strong after care in several cities? So that was that was the issue. You know on this proposal I am very concerned and I think the legislature will be very confused. This is not a proposal that we have seen before and the first confusing item is calling it a boot camp. I don't think anybody knows what a boot camp is but if you call it that then it is sure to get opposition from a certain group in the legislature. Very vigorous opposition. My concern about the New York model is that we haven't put enough money in this line to

finance what New York is financing in their program. This proposal proposes to spend about half per day on these children as is spent in New York and I don't think that we can get the same results for half the amount of money. That is why I really believe we need to not put up additional facilities. We need to use a number of facilities that are available to us that already exist and we need to work on the programming in those facilities and as the secretary just stated we really need to work on after care. I think Mr. Clevall would agree with that too. After care is a real issue with adult felons who are released and with children who are released. What would you do about the overcrowding? How are we going to, you know, I've leaned out the system as much as I can. Judges aren't changing their sentence and pattern significantly and we've got a concentration of the most violent and difficult kids in my facility but I don't have room for. What are we going to do? You know I don't think there's any credibility in the legislature given to that

argument and the reason is the Anna E. Casey report. The Anna E. Casey reports that we really need to go back and find out specifically who these children are. One of the real challenges to the courts and corrections committee in the interim both with the corrections department and less with children youth and families is that we don't have a good profile of who these children are. We know their ethnicity. We have a list of some of the crimes that they've been convicted of but we don't really know who they are. In the proposal the committee adopted today and also in secretary Wilson's proposal is a classification system which is badly needed in the juvenile court system after a child is convicted. We need to study and find out who these kids are and then we should be designing programs based on who we have in the facilities and who is coming through the court system rather than putting up a facility and trying to find kids to fit into the profile for the facility. That just seems backwards to the committee. Given the boot camp's controversial history in the legislature

we could probably do an entire show on this. I do want to spend some time on the prevention ended things as well. Bob help us out here. What are caseloads like in your office? We've been able to get our caseloads down where they're stable. They're manageable. A lot of this. I would think that right now this is the best our staff has had it in years and years. A lot of the reasons behind this has to do with the R -Agencies, C -Y -F -D and the juvenile justice division is tapped in through the kids who qualify for Medicaid and Title IV monies. Because of those entitlement monies we've been able to increase some staff. It's almost scary that if we lose these term positions and they're a year -to -year funding our staff will be devastated. Our caseloads would go up to probably around 100 and you know that's almost unheard of to try to get some things done with kids when your caseloads are that high. But right now our caseloads are manageable. The staff is doing a real good job with the amount of

kids that they have. We have an average statewide. In January it was 48 kids on an average statewide. We had one probation officer with up to 170 kids completely unmanageable and just as Bob said what we did was redirect some federal money hired 27 new probation officers in January and February to get the caseloads down to an average of 39 now just still above the national average. But we want to get it even lower and also specialize some caseloads put some informal probation officers out in the schools dealing with the at -risk kids and the true end kids so that we can the key to this whole plan is to divert more kids early and a lot of that happens outside of the correctional system but that first contact with the correctional system the first time a kid is arrested we need to make sure that they get the attention they need to get their lives back on track then. Anytime a kid who's on probation messes up commits another crime the public feels we're being too soft on these kids why wasn't that kid in prison it sounds good to say let's get more probation officers out there but how do you fight the perception that you're

being soft on crime by doing so I think that's I think that's a really good question and a good issue we have to deal with kids as kids you know kids push the limits we need to get violent kids who cannot be dealt within the community away from the community keep the community safe 80 percent of the kids arrested in New Mexico never go in front of a judge half of those kids are first defenders often for minor property crimes most of those kids are just worn and released and for some kids who will be grounded forever by their parents that's they have enough structure to be able to say I'm never going to do that again but for the ones who have some risk factors who don't have a stable family life who may be involved in drugs having trouble in school those are the kinds of things that are indicators that this isn't the first and this may be the first time but it's not going to be the only time we need to get attention to that kid you know you can't ask this department to solve those problems this department's job is to help us deal with those kids who really

surface as severe in the system but you're asking them to solve the problems of a whole of a community of every community and every family in the state that has a troubled child that gets in the system or may not get in the system let's let's let's let's stay on this point the asking communities to solve the problems is a big part of whatever plan is going to come out here that we need these placements in the community and halfway houses and group homes and so we need volunteers and mentors too but we do we even have any clue of what works how to cure these kids we have some things that we we know what kind of kids don't come back kids who have at least one caring adult in their lives has a strong sense of values kids who have something meaningful to do that they're committed to a lot of the things that we see we have looked at the profiles of the kids coming in and the kids in our facilities in our facilities 80 % of those kids come from from single parent families very

often no father involved in their life a history of massive social and educational failure 20 to 25 percent of them have a prior referral for abuse or neglect on average between six and nine prior offenses before they even end up in an institution 97 % of the kids who commit a crime in New Mexico are never going to come to an institution it's less than 3 % whoever end up in the boy school or the YDDC but that that number that are getting into trouble is increasing and we're having a concentration of kids at our facility we just can't handle your plan your plan has high hopes for for increasing community programs but at the same time I think there's a nimby aspect involved to this you're hard up for foster workers as it is in the system there's a there's a proposal for a two -year sex offender treatment program and and I dare say I can't see neighborhoods lining up to say please put that on my block how

do you get these communities to get on board and help rehabilitate kids well I'm been pleased going around the state and town hall meetings how much communities do want to be part of hold kids accountable in communities now and they most of these kids stay in their communities now the issue is whether we can meet their needs and and do things with them in the communities or whether they're just on a high case load for a probation officer okay to look to add something to what Heather was saying that when you talk about more and more involvement from communities what this agency is trying to do and we've done it more and more over as the years have gone by 10 years ago we had very little parent -family involvement with probation all our specialized case loads you talk about sex offender treatment gyps intensive probation program vips violence intervention probation program they're in both of the the agendas here with senator pastor and secretary Wilson we're getting the parents more involved we're finding out that's where the problems are in the home and more and more emphasis for our staff and for people statewide working in this area to

get these kind of programs with the parents are involved with the kids is going to make some success for us when you talked about success before one of the things that judge Martinez was in my office right before I came here and I told him you only see the kids that keep coming back there's a stack of files on my floor of kids that have completed probation have done real well don't forget about these kids a lot of kids have done real well 50 % of the kids last fiscal year an intensive probation successfully completed their probation without violating their probation and that is Albuquerque's high risk kids so there's hope for these kids and with senator pastor and secretary Wilson putting together these programs as well as the the facilities upgrading those things are going to get better I have a feeling we have about one minute left and I do want to get into this and this is something you can answer senator pastor whatever plan gets adopted whatever compromise gets adopted it's going to cost a lot of money and the state's not exactly flush right now we're looking at some some problems right now paying our current bills do we have

what it's going to take to carry out any kind of a reform and that's what I was going to try to interrupt you to say the real challenge for all of us is how we can fund even a portion of this proposal it will be extremely difficult the courts and corrections proposal is a little bit less expensive than the department's proposal over the period of the two years because it doesn't have the the capital out life for the facilities but we're facing a proposed adult prison budget of 140 million which will have a 70 million dollar impact on the general fund this proposal that we're talking about here is in the range of twenty three million and we're not going to be able to afford it we're out of time that's two years and I apologize for cutting you off I'd like to thank all three of you for being here Janice Pastor Bob Cleval and Heather Wilson thank you the viewers for for staying with us we will be back next week with another edition for this at week's end I'm Kate Nelson