[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REVIEWING THE JUVENILE JUSTICE
SYSTEM AND HOW IT SERVES
AT-RISK YOUTH
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, OCTOBER 8, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-31
__________
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman
Joe Wilson, South Carolina Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott,
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Virginia
Duncan Hunter, California Ranking Member
David P. Roe, Tennessee Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Susan A. Davis, California
Tim Walberg, Michigan Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Matt Salmon, Arizona Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
Todd Rokita, Indiana Jared Polis, Colorado
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Joseph J. Heck, Nevada Northern Mariana Islands
Luke Messer, Indiana Frederica S. Wilson, Florida
Bradley Byrne, Alabama Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon
David Brat, Virginia Mark Pocan, Wisconsin
Buddy Carter, Georgia Mark Takano, California
Michael D. Bishop, Michigan Hakeem S. Jeffries, New York
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Katherine M. Clark, Massachusetts
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Alma S. Adams, North Carolina
Carlos Curbelo, Florida Mark DeSaulnier, California
Elise Stefanik, New York
Rick Allen, Georgia
Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director
Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 8, 2015.................................. 1
Statement of Members:
Kline, Hon. John, Chairman, Committee on Education and the
Workforce.................................................. 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Scott, Hon. Robert C., Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and the Workforce.......................................... 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Baxter, Sloane, Youth Advocate, Washington, DC............... 49
Prepared statement of.................................... 51
Cohen, Derek, Deputy Director, Center for Effective Justice,
Texas Public Policy Foundation, Austin, TX................. 40
Prepared statement of.................................... 42
Goldsmith, Tim, Dr., Chief Clinical Officer, Youth Villages,
Memphis, TN................................................ 66
Prepared statement of.................................... 68
Teske, Hon. Steven, Chief Judge, Clayton County Juvenile
Court, Jonesboro, GA....................................... 57
Prepared statement of.................................... 59
Additional Submissions:
Mr. Cohen:
Responses to questions submitted for the record.............. 77
Promoting Safe Communities................................... 169
Chairman Kline:
Letter dated October 8, 2015 from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids 196
Nolan, Tim, Ph.D., Executive Director/CEO, National Centers
for Learning Excellence, Inc., Child and Family Centers of
Excellence, Inc., Waukesha, WI:
Four Points in Time: Defining the Success of Our Nation's
Head Start Investment...................................... 202
Quality Early Childhood Education: Enduring Benefits......... 206
Judge Teske:
Gender Injustice System-Level Juvenile Justice Reforms for
Girls...................................................... 92
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA)
Policy Recommendations..................................... 199
Mr. Scott:
Prepared statement of American Civil Liberties Union......... 07
Prepared statement of ACT 4 Juvenile Justice Campaign........ 21
Prepared statement of Human Rights Campaign.................. 24
Prepared statement of National Indian Education Association.. 29
Prepared statement of National Head Start Association........ 34
REVIEWING THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
AND HOW IT SERVES AT-RISK YOUTH
----------
Thursday, October 8, 2015
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and the Workforce
Washington, D.C.
----------
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in room
HVC-210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. John Kline [chairman of
the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Kline, Foxx, Walberg, Rokita,
Messer, Brat, Carter, Bishop, Grothman, Curbelo, Allen, Scott,
Davis, Courtney, Fudge, Wilson of Florida, Pocan, Clark, and
DeSaulnier.
Staff Present: Lauren Aronson, Press Secretary; Janelle
Belland, Coalitions and Members Services Coordinator; Amy Raaf
Jones, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Nancy
Locke, Chief Clerk; Dominique McKay, Deputy Press Secretary;
Brian Newell, Communications Director; Krisann Pearce, General
Counsel; James Redstone, Professional Staff Member; Alex Ricci,
Legislative Assistant; Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk;
Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director; Leslie Tatum, Professional
Staff Member; Sheariah Yousefi, Staff Assistant; Tylease Alli,
Minority Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator; Austin Barbera,
Minority Staff Assistant; Denise Forte, Minority Staff
Director; Christian Haines, Minority Education Policy Counsel;
Tina Hone, Minority Education Policy Director and Associate
General Counsel; Brian Kennedy, Minority General Counsel;
Michael Taylor, Minority Education Policy Fellow; and Saloni
Sharma, Minority Press Assistant.
Chairman Kline. A quorum being present, the Committee on
Education and the Workforce will come to order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's hearing on the
juvenile justice system. I'd like to thank our witnesses for
joining us as we engage in a growing national conversation
about how to set at-risk youth and juvenile offenders on the
pathway to success.
Some may be wondering why the Education and the Workforce
Committee is holding a hearing on an issue that might otherwise
fall under the Judiciary Committee's purview. After all, the
words crime, court, judge, jail are not terms we frequently
hear in this committee. So why are we here today? Because
keeping our communities safe and supporting at-risk youth
requires more than an adjudication system and a detention
facility. It requires education, rehabilitation, and family
participation, a joint effort by parents, teachers, community
members, and civic leaders to prevent criminal behavior and
support children who have engaged in illegal activity.
The stakes are high for these youth and the communities
they live in. Research shows children who have been
incarcerated are up to 26 percent more likely to return to jail
as adults. They are also 26 percent less likely to graduate
high school. These are hardly the outcomes vulnerable children
and their families deserve. They also have detrimental short-
and long-term effects on our society, imposing costs on the
taxpayers and jeopardizing the safety of others.
This is an issue that directly impacts our families and our
neighborhoods, and we all have a role to play in addressing it.
Recognizing the value of a collaborative approach to
juvenile justice, Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act in 1974. The goal of the law is to
educate at-risk youth and rehabilitate juvenile offenders so
they can become productive members of society. The law is based
on the premise that the juvenile justice system can create
positive opportunities for children who would otherwise go
without.
As we will hear from our witnesses, many juvenile justice
programs have helped children develop the life skills they need
to hold themselves accountable and earn their own success. Of
course, not all programs have experienced the same results.
That's why States and communities are constantly looking for
new ways to better serve at-risk youth.
For example, many States are investing in alternatives to
juvenile detention facilities, such as community and family-
based support services to help children get back on track. It
appears these efforts are making a difference. Between 2001 and
2011, crime and incarceration declined dramatically across the
country. The rate of incarceration fell by 46 percent, and the
rate of juvenile offenses fell by 31 percent.
While these trends are heading in the right direction, we
still face the stark reality that there are more than 2 million
children involved in the juvenile justice system. Meanwhile,
many more are at risk of entering the system because of
difficult circumstances that too often lead to juvenile
delinquency, such as poverty, broken families, and
homelessness.
As we discuss ways to better serve at-risk youth and
juvenile offenders through education and rehabilitation, we
have the privilege today of hearing from Sloane Baxter, someone
who faced many of these challenges as a juvenile offender and
who knows firsthand how community-based programs can set youth
on a better path.
Mr. Baxter, thank you for the example you're setting. By
sharing your story with us today, you are helping make a
difference in the lives of others. We look forward to hearing
from you and the rest of our distinguished witnesses.
Before I conclude my opening remarks, I want to commend my
colleague, Ranking Member Scott, for his longstanding
leadership on this important issue. I look forward to hearing
from him today and to working with him in the future.
With that, I yield to Mr. Scott for his opening remarks.
[The statement of Chairman Kline follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Kline, Chairman, Committee on Education
and the Workforce
Some may be wondering why the Education and the Workforce Committee
is holding a hearing on an issue that might otherwise fall under the
Judiciary Committee's purview. After all, the words ``crime,''
``court,'' ``judge,'' and ``jail'' are not terms we frequently hear in
this committee. So why are we here today? Because keeping our
communities safe and supporting at-risk youth requires more than an
adjudication system and a detention facility. It requires education,
rehabilitation, and family participation--a joint effort by parents,
teachers, community members, and civic leaders to prevent criminal
behavior and support children who have engaged in illegal activity.
The stakes are high for these youth and the communities they live
in. Research shows children who have been incarcerated are up to 26
percent more likely to return to jail as adults. They are also 26
percent less likely to graduate high school. These are hardly the
outcomes vulnerable children and their families deserve. They also have
detrimental short- and long-term effects on our society, imposing costs
onto taxpayers and jeopardizing the safety of others.
This is an issue that directly impacts our families and our
neighborhoods, and we all have a role to play in addressing it.
Recognizing the value of a collaborative approach to juvenile justice,
Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in
1974. The goal of the law is to educate at-risk youth and rehabilitate
juvenile offenders so they can become productive members of society.
The law is based on the premise that the juvenile justice system
can create positive opportunities for children who would otherwise go
without. As we will hear from our witnesses, many juvenile justice
programs have helped children develop the life skills they need to hold
themselves accountable and earn their own success. Of course, not all
programs have experienced the same results. That's why states and
communities are constantly looking for new ways to better serve at-risk
youth.
For example, many states are investing in alternatives to juvenile
detention facilities--such as community- and family- based support
services--to help children get back on track. It appears these efforts
are making a difference. Between 2001 and 2011, crime and incarceration
declined dramatically across the country. The rate of incarceration
fell by 46 percent, and the rate of juvenile offenses fell by 31
percent.
While these trends are heading in the right direction, we still
face the stark reality that there are more than two million children
involved in the juvenile justice system. Meanwhile, many more are at-
risk of entering the system because of difficult circumstances that too
often lead to juvenile delinquency, such as poverty, broken families,
and homelessness.
As we discuss ways to better serve at-risk youth and juvenile
offenders through education and rehabilitation, we have the privilege
today of hearing from Sloane Baxter, someone who faced many of these
challenges as a juvenile offender and who knows firsthand how
community-based programs can set youth on a better path. Mr. Baxter,
thank you for the example you're setting. By sharing your story with us
today, you're helping make a difference in the lives of others. We look
forward to hearing from you and the rest of our distinguished
witnesses.
Before I conclude my opening remarks, I want to commend our
colleague, Ranking Member Scott, for his long-standing leadership on
this important issue. I look forward to hearing from him today and to
working with him in the future.
______
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank you
for calling this hearing today on the juvenile justice system.
You have properly explained why juvenile justice is in this
committee, the Education and the Workforce Committee, not in
Judiciary. That's because the most effective solutions to
juvenile crime and delinquency are prevention, particularly
education, and not waiting for crimes to occur and responding
with the criminal justice system.
It's been over 100 years since we have established the
juvenile court system in America. The juvenile system
recognizes that children are generally less capable of having
the requisite intent and maturity to commit crimes, and
therefore, a rehabilitative and educational response to their
misconduct, as opposed to a criminal justice response, is more
appropriate.
Over the 20th century, State juvenile justice systems
evolved separately and without Federal oversight. In time, many
became to resemble the adult systems with little focus on
children and their rehabilitation. In response, Congress passed
the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act in 1974. It
creates the Federal guardrails that protect our children in the
juvenile justice system in each State.
JJDPA has three main components. The first act established
core protections and other mandates that States must adhere to
regarding the treatment of children in the juvenile justice
system. It authorized formula and competitive grants to help
States run their juvenile justice systems in line with the
Federal requirements and provided delinquency prevention
programs. And, finally, it created the Federal Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, OJJDP, to oversee
juvenile justice programs.
In the 13 years since we last reauthorized the program,
there's been a wealth of knowledge and research that has been
created that needs to be integrated into our Federal juvenile
justice policies. For example, we've seen positive results some
States have had from investing in alternatives to incarceration
and secure detention. I know that our witnesses today will be
able to speak to some of the work being done around the country
in small residential settings as opposed to large child prison
warehouses and reform schools that marred our past.
We have also documented the power evidence-based policies
have in reducing crime and saving money. The Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention continues to fund and
document practices and programs that have proven research bases
and have marked impact on communities through prevention and
intervention.
We have recognized the role that misguided school
discipline practices, coupled with an unresponsive juvenile
justice system, what they play in creating what's called the
school-to-prison pipeline with students being arrested and
referred to the juvenile justice system for minor offenses at
early ages that traditionally had been resolved in the
principal's office.
And perhaps more importantly, we have begun to realize
around the country the role that trauma plays in the lives of
disengaged youth. This is especially true in the lives of
girls, the fastest-growing demographic in the juvenile justice
system. The FBI statistics tell us that between 1980 and 2005
the rates of arrest for violent offenses, including physical
assault, sexual assault, and homicide increased 78 percent for
girls, while declining 6 percent for boys. Research also shows
that of girls entering the juvenile justice system, they are
twice as likely as boys to report sexual abuse and girls are
four times more likely than boys to have experienced sexual
assault.
I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that we know from
briefings that will be taking place today at 11 o'clock, hosted
by our colleague Karen Bass of California on this very topic,
that is the rise of girls in the juvenile justice system and
the link between sexual abuse and juvenile delinquency and what
some researchers are calling the sexual-abuse-to-prison
pipeline. We know that understanding trauma is often central in
these young girls' and boys' lives, and understanding that is
essential to helping them turn their lives around.
Now, policy changes alone are not the only reason we need
to reauthorize JJDPA. The current reauthorization expired in
2007, and while the law still remains technically in effect,
the authorization levels--the guidelines on how Congress should
appropriate funds--are no longer in effect. We had a rude
awakening in the House earlier this year when the
appropriations bill appropriating money for the Department of
Justice zeroed out multiple accounts under the act. And since
there's no current authorization to point to in law, we were
unable to amend the appropriations bill to include some
funding.
The chairman of the subcommittee who zeroed out the
funding, did so by pointing out, in part, the fact that the
program has not been reauthorized for 8 years and as such was
either unnecessary or not a priority. The Senate recognized the
need for Federal funds, and they restored the funding in their
version of the Appropriations Act, but we're still likely to
have the same problem year after year until we have a
reauthorization of this program.
The Senate has taken the lead in reauthorizing the act, and
they have a bill which passed out of committee and will be
considered on the floor sometime in the near future. And I'm
committed to working with you, Mr. Chairman, here in the House
to produce a bill that will build on what we've learned in the
last 13 years, and it's my sincere hope that we can get a bill
on the President's desk before the end of this Congress.
I look forward to hearing the testimony of the witnesses
today and hope we can move forward in a bipartisan manner for
reestablishing JJDPA as guideposts for the juvenile justice
policy for our country once again.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Scott follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Ranking Member,
Committee on Education and the Workforce
Good morning. Chairman Kline, I'd like to thank you for calling
this hearing today on our Juvenile Justice System.
It has been over 100 years since we established a juvenile court
system in America. The juvenile system recognized children as generally
incapable of having the requisite intent to commit crimes, therefore
requiring a rehabilitative and educational response to their misconduct
as opposed to a criminal justice response. Over the 20th century, state
juvenile justice systems evolved separately and without federal
oversight. In time, many came to resemble adult systems, with little
focus on children and their rehabilitation.
In response, Congress passed the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and
Prevention Act in 1974. It creates the federal guardrails that protect
our children in the juvenile justice systems in each state. JJDPA has 3
main components. The act first established core protections and other
mandates states must adhere to regarding the treatment of children in
the juvenile justice system. It authorized formula and competitive
grants to help states run their juvenile justice systems in line with
the federal requirements and provide delinquency prevention programs.
Finally it created the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) to oversee juvenile justice programs.
In the 13 years since we last reauthorized the program, there has
been a wealth of knowledge and research created that needs to be
integrated into our federal juvenile justice policies.
We have seen the positive results some states have had from
investing in alternatives to incarceration and secure detention. I know
our witnesses here today will be able to speak to some of the work
being done around the country in small residential settings, as opposed
to the large child prison warehouses and reform schools that marred our
past.
We have documented the power evidence-based policies have in both
reducing crime and saving money. The Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, or OJJDP, continues to fund and document
practices and programs that have proven research bases and make marked
impact in communities through prevention and intervention.
We have recognized the role that misguided school discipline
practices, coupled with an unresponsive juvenile justice system, play
in creating a School to Prison Pipeline, with students being arrested
and referred to the juvenile justice system for minor offenses at early
ages.
And, perhaps most importantly, we have begun to realize around the
country the role that trauma plays in the lives of our disengaged
youth. This is especially true in the lives of girls, the fastest
growing demographic in the juvenile justice system.
FBI statistics tell us that between 1980 and 2005, rates of arrest
for violent offenses-- including physical assault, sexual assault, and
homicide--increased 78 percent for girls while declining 6 percent for
boys. Research also shows that of girls entering the juvenile justice
system are twice as likely as boys to report sexual abuse and girls
were four times more likely than boys to have experienced sexual
assault.
I would be remiss if I didn't let all of you here know about a
briefing that will be taking place at 11 today, hosted by our colleague
Karen Bass of California, on the this very topic, the rise of girls in
the juvenile justice system and the link between sexual abuse and
juvenile delinquency - what some researchers are calling the sexual
abuse to prison pipeline.
Understanding the trauma that is often central in these young
girls' and boys' lives is essential to helping them turn their life
around.
Policy changes alone though are not the only reason we need to
reauthorize JJDPA. The current authorization expired in 2007. And while
the law remains in effect, the authorization levels - the guidelines as
to how Congress should appropriate funds - are no longer in effect.
There was a rude awakening in the House this year when the
Appropriators, in their FY 2016 bill appropriating money to the
Department of Justice, zeroed out multiple accounts under JJDPA. And
since there was no current authorization to point to in law, we were
unable to amend it. The chairman of the subcommittee who zeroed out the
funding did so pointing in part to the fact that the program had been
out of authorization for 8 years, and as such was either unnecessary or
not a priority. The Senate recognized the need for federal funds for
juvenile justice so they restored funding in their version of the
appropriation bill. But we are likely to have this same problem year
after year, making the fight for juvenile justice funding an uphill
climb until we have a reauthorization of JJDPA.
The Senate has taken the lead in reauthorizing JJDPA and they have
a bill which has passed out of Committee and will be considered on the
Senate floor sometime in the future. I am committed to working with
Chairman Kline here in the House to produce a JJDPA bill as well that
builds on what we've learned in the last 13 years, and it's my sincere
hope we can get a bill to the President's desk before the end of this
Congress. I look forward to hearing the testimony of the witnesses
today and I hope we can move forward in a bipartisan manner to
reestablishing JJPDA as the guidepost of juvenile justice policy for
the country once again.
______
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(c), all members will be
permitted to submit written statements to be included in the
permanent hearing record. And without objection, the hearing
record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements
and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to
be submitted for the official hearing record.
[The information follows:](Scott)26-57 breakdown in
transcript
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Kline. It is now my pleasure to introduce our
distinguished witnesses, but I want to make an administrative
announcement. We have a hard stop here this morning. This is
somewhat unusual, but these are somewhat unusual times, at
least on this side of the aisle. We have a hard stop at 11:45.
So I'll be encouraging my colleagues to move with alacrity.
So our witnesses today, we have Mr. Derek Cohen. He's the
deputy director for the Center for Effective Justice at the
Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, Texas. Mr. Cohen has
presented several papers to the American Society of
Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the
American Evaluation Association on the implementation and
outcomes of various criminal justice policy issues, including
juvenile justice.
Mr. Sloane Baxter is a youth advocate here in Washington,
D.C. Mr. Baxter received help and healing at Boys Town's
family-style, community-based therapeutic residential program
after referral from the juvenile justice system. While at Boys
Town, he participated with other system-involved youth in
publishing a collaborative book of poetry, entitled ``Concrete
Dreams.'' Mr. Baxter successfully graduated high school and
currently works full time as a coffee barista and runs his own
home improvement business.
The Honorable Steven Teske serves as the chief judge of the
Juvenile Court of Clayton County in Jonesboro, Georgia. In
2012, Judge Teske was appointed to the Criminal Justice Reform
Council focusing on reforms to juvenile justice in Georgia. He
is a past president of the Council of Juvenile Court Judges of
Georgia and is a member of the board of trustees of the
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
Dr. Tim Goldsmith is chief financial officer with Youth
Villages in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Goldsmith has direct
responsibility for the clinical research placement services and
performance improvement departments at Youth Villages, an
intensive youth diversion and intervention services program,
and has been directly involved in the development and
implementation of evidence-based programs at Youth Villages.
I will now ask our witnesses to please stand and raise your
right hand.
[ Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Kline. Let the record reflect the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Before I recognize each of you to provide your testimony,
let me briefly explain our lighting system. We allow 5 minutes
for each witness to provide testimony. When you begin, the
light in front of you will turn green. When 1 minute is left,
the light will turn yellow. At the 5 minute mark, the light
will turn red and you should wrap up your testimony as quickly
as you can.
This high-tech hearing room that we've got here in the
Visitor Center actually gives you a clock, so you can take a
look at that as well.
When we get to questions from members of the committee, we
are going to limit that time to 4 minutes instead of 5 minutes
because of the hard stop we've got here. So if you will start
to edit your questions now, that would be good.
Mr. Cohen, you're recognized.
TESTIMONY OF MR. DEREK COHEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
EFFECTIVE JUSTICE, TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION, AUSTIN, TX
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the rest of the
committee, for inviting me here today. My name is Derek Cohen.
I'm the deputy director for the Center for Effective Justice at
the Texas Public Policy Foundation and in our Right on Crime
campaign. We thank Chairman Kline and the committee for taking
up this important issue.
While not the widely most understood element of public
policy, juvenile justice is certainly one of the most critical.
In Texas alone, it costs us eight times what it costs to
incarcerate an adult to incarcerate a juvenile. In the
community, that is four and a half times. These costs per day
pale in comparison when taking into account the potential long-
run expenses associated with repeat offending costs reasonably
expected to accrue if the juvenile criminal's activity
continues unabated.
The malleability of juveniles' behavior, however, offers
great potential for rehabilitation and great potential for the
youth to be diverted from a life of crime.
Like its adult counterpart, too, juvenile justice has
experienced a rampant uptick in the application of law and
formalized proceedings to address behavior of dubious criminal
blameworthiness. This is experienced twofold by juveniles, as
they are subject not only to the prevailing criminal law, but
also to a body of status offenses, actions not criminal if
committed by an adult, like truancy, incorrigibility, or
running away, and so on. While not traditionally criminal in
nature, these offenses still might land a juvenile behind bars.
The valid court order, or VCO, exception included in
previous reauthorizations of the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act permit the confinement of status
offenders for failing to honor a court order mandating they do
not commit the specific reoffense. Not only does this
confinement of status offenders cost precious resources and
limited juvenile compliant bed space, it often fails to address
the root causes that triggered that offense in the first place.
Further, it suggests that the State's role is to intercede with
disciplinary issues traditionally reserved for family and the
community.
In 2013, an estimated 2,524 youth were detained with the
most serious crime being a status offense during a 1-day
census. An analysis of the data-gathering method conducted by
us at the Texas Public Policy Foundation suggests that this
estimate may actually underestimate the total by 3.68 times,
the true number of status offenders being confined over the
course of a year being closer to 8,404. Removal of this
exception from future reauthorizations of the Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention Act should strongly be considered.
We've made key reforms to our juvenile system in the State
of Texas and produced noteworthy results in State-level
commitments and general expenditures on juvenile justice. Each
session, legislators have implemented reform, some minor, some
major, that prioritize community-based treatment alternatives
to costly incarceration, and the bill that went through this
session aimed on keeping juveniles closer to home. This bill is
estimated to save tens of millions of dollars over the next 5
years, as well as produce better outcomes in recidivism.
In the fiscal year 2006, 2,738 juveniles were committed to
secure facilities in Texas. By fiscal year 2013, the number of
commitments had dropped to 818, a drop of over 70 percent. This
drop allowed the State to close or consolidate seven
facilities.
These reforms were attended by a commensurate drop in
nominal spending, with State expenditures on juvenile justice
being the lowest it's been since fiscal year 2001, a drop of 16
percent from 2005 to 2012 alone.
If done properly, juvenile justice policy can intervene in
a nascent criminal career, preventing future victimization at
the hands of the offenders and drains on law enforcement and
correctional resources. However, selecting and implementing
these practices must be left to the respective States who stand
to gain both financially and socially from getting it right.
Thank you, sir.
[The testimony of Mr. Cohen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Kline. Thank you very much.
Mr. Baxter, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF MR. SLOANE BAXTER, YOUTH ADVOCATE, WASHINGTON,
D.C.
Mr. Baxter. Good morning, Chairman Kline and Ranking Member
Scott and members of the committee. My name is Sloane Baxter,
and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all today. I am
22 years old, and I'm here to share my personal experience with
the juvenile justice system.
I was the at-risk youth we're talking about today. Like a
lot of other young people, who find themselves involved with
the juvenile justice system, my family and I had challenges. My
parents did the best they could, but both my mom and dad had
drinking problems when I was young. By the time I was 11 or 12,
I had become used to taking care of myself and doing things
without much supervision.
At school, things were up and down for me. I have ADHD.
Teachers didn't always know the best way to help me. At home I
started staying out late and hanging out with older guys. But
by the time my parents realized the path I was on and tried to
correct it, I didn't want to hear it.
I started getting in serious trouble at 14 years old. When
my parents separated, I came back to visit my dad and we got
into an argument on a late night. My dad was intoxicated and I
had been drinking as well. After that argument, I left the
house, and although I had never been in trouble with the law
before, I decided to try to steal a car. I broke the car
window, but didn't get any further than that. When I walked
away from the car, I was quickly caught by police and arrested.
Breaking that window, trying to steal that car at 14 was
really a cry out for help, an effort to control things that
were out of my control. I know that now.
I was detained at a youth service center, which is YSC, and
placed on probation that I didn't comply with. I continued to
missed curfew, drink alcohol, and occasionally smoke marijuana.
There was no positive intervention with me at this point.
Probation monitored me, but didn't do anything to implement
help or assistance in my circumstances.
I was ultimately committed to DYS, or Department of Youth
Rehabilitation Services. Despite no new charges and a low risk
level in the community, I spent most of the next year locked up
at YSC, and then Oak Hill, which was a detention center for
young youth.
Oak Hill was a terrible, terrible place for me. The kids
would get in fights with each other, fight guards, and, you
know, pretty much just run around as they felt need. I was 15
years old and depressed when staff from Boys Town came out to
Oak Hill to interview me. I didn't know what to expect, but
when I arrived, it was so different from the institutional,
locked facilities where I had been. Boys Town was the first
place that I had went where I felt that people actually cared
about what they did and they actually cared about what I did.
It was a positive, nonhostile environment. The expectations
to learn and succeed were clear. It was a family-oriented
atmosphere, and I lived with my Family Teachers, the trained
married couple who implemented the Boys Town motto of care and
support of staff. Payton and Yadelska Wynne became like a
second set of parents to me.
At Boys Town I had individualized care while Boys Town
helped me. And finally, me admitting that I had a problem and
them giving me the help I needed, I ended up going to rehab.
And then I went back to finish the program with the Wynnes.
Through the good times and the bad times, Boys Town was
persistently supporting me. I was actually able to help other
guys in the house, and we were a positive influence on one
another.
With all the skills I had learned at Boys Town, I became a
peer mediator at school and I graduated successfully in 2012.
Life still presents difficult circumstances, but now I have the
skills to handle those situations as they come. I didn't learn
anything positive locked up at YSC or Oak Hill, but at Boys
Town I learned all kinds of skills that I still use today with
my family and on my job.
I have been employed with the same major corporation as a
coffee barista for 4 years at Union Station, and I run my own
small home improvement business. I'm self-reliant, and I have a
better relationship with my parents today. My dad and I had a
lot of struggles, but now I can actually tell him I love him. I
haven't been rearrested, and I won't be. I have different
visions for my life and possibilities for myself.
Boys Town was a program that helped me and so many others
just like me turn our lives around. But I'm not any different
from any of those guys and themselves. The difference is that
someone didn't just lock me up and give up on me. Instead, I
got help and support in my community, and I was able to take
charge for myself for the long term.
I easily could have been a statistic. Instead, I'm a
taxpaying, contributing member of society. There is that
possibility in every young person, as long as you, me, and all
of the rest of us are willing not to give up on them before
even really giving them a chance to start.
Thanks for inviting me to be here. Thank you.
[The testimony of Mr. Baxter follows:]
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Chairman Kline. Thank you, sir.
Judge Teske, you're recognized for 5 minutes, sir.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE STEVEN TESKE, CHIEF JUDGE, CLAYTON
COUNTY JUVENILE COURT, JONESBORO, GA
Judge Teske. Good morning, Chairman Kline, Ranking Member
Scott, and members of this committee.
In addition to the 16 years I've spent on the court, I've
been involved in the juvenile justice system in many other
capacities. You've mentioned one, Chairman Kline, and that is
serving my Governor, Nathan Deal, on the Criminal Justice
Reform Commission, but I state that specifically because we
studied the juvenile justice system and it resulted in sweeping
recommendations that were unanimously approved by our State
legislature.
This morning I would like to focus on our current juvenile
justice system and the need to reauthorize the JJDPA. We do not
have a national centralized juvenile justice system.
Consequently, laws, policies, and procedures can vary widely
from State to State and among local jurisdictions. This creates
a patchwork of juvenile justice systems that result in
inconsistent outcomes for youth, families, and communities,
including youth exposure to physical, mental, and emotional
injury.
To address these inconsistencies and improve outcomes for
youth and community safety, Congress passed the JJDPA in 1974.
This act is designed to bring consistency in juvenile justice
best practices among all the States by identifying four
protections based in research that are core to delinquency
prevention and rehabilitation. I'll name them quickly.
The deinstitutionalization of status offenders, DSO. Status
offenses are not crimes if committed by an adult. They include
skipping school, running away, unruly behavior, and possession
or use of alcohol. Under the JJDPA, with rare exceptions,
status offenders may not be held in secure detention because it
introduces them to truly delinquent youth that becomes a
training ground to delinquency.
Jail removal. Youth charged with a delinquent act may not
be detained at adult jails, and for the same reason status
offenders should not be locked up with delinquent youth.
Children who are housed in adult jails are eight times more
likely to commit suicide, two times more likely to be assaulted
by staff, 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon
than children in juvenile facilities.
The third one, sight and sound. Same reason. In those rare
exceptions when children are placed in adult jail, sight and
sound contact with adults is prohibited.
And then lastly, disproportionate minority contact, DMC.
Studies indicate that youth of color receive tougher sentences
and are more likely to be incarcerated than white youth for the
same offenses. States are required to assess and address the
disproportionate contact of youth of color at all points in the
justice system.
The JJDPA is intended to create a Federal-State partnership
for the administration of juvenile justice and delinquency
prevention by providing funding, planning, and technical
support to address the core protections.
JJDPA has been a game changer in the juvenile justice
field. For example, when I took the bench in 1999, my county
was inundated with high commitment rates to State custody,
overwhelming probation caseloads, of which most were kids of
color, and nonviolent offenders and high reoffense rates. Using
an approach mirrored in Ranking Member Scott's Youth PROMISE
Act, I created a number of evidence-based programs and
practices using Federal funding. These programs, seeded by
Federal funds from JJDPA, have accomplished the following:
Number one, an 83 percent decrease in our detention population;
a 75 percent reduction in detention of minority youth; 77
percent fewer commitments to State custody; 70 percent fewer
commitments of minority youth. And, despite all of that, our
juvenile crime rate went down 62 percent.
In our efforts to reform juvenile justice statewide, which
was led by our Governor, Nathan Deal, these Clayton County
programs have become a model for reform. We have seen great
success in Georgia, but we must be able to continue to
capitalize on that momentum to ensure our children and
communities are safe.
To that end, I recommend the following. Number one,
enhanced judicial training to keep up with the specialized
field of juvenile justice; reauthorize the JJDPA for the
reasons I just mentioned and so that new research in evidence-
based trauma and foreign practices can be implemented
nationwide; strengthen the disproportionate minority contact
core protection of JJDPA; and eliminate the use of detention of
status offenders and promote less harmful and more effective
alternatives to detention.
Given the momentum in the Senate with the recent passage of
the reauthorization in the Judiciary Committee, I believe this
committee must begin its work to reauthorize the outdated
JJDPA. Chairman, your committee now has an opportunity to
improve upon a historical and strategic act of Congress that
has assisted States like mine to keep our communities safe and
put youth on a better path.
I want to express my gratitude to you, Chairman Kline and
this committee, for holding this hearing, and I look forward to
working with you in any way I can.
[The testimony of Judge Teske follows:]
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Chairman Kline. Thank you, Judge.
Dr. Goldsmith, you're recognized.
TESTIMONY OF DR. TIM GOLDSMITH, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, YOUTH
VILLAGES, MEMPHIS, TN
Mr. Goldsmith. Thank you so much, Chairman Kline and
Ranking Member Scott, for having us at this setting today.
I'd like to talk a bit today about what's it's like for a
provider to work with these families. We serve youth and
families and the community across the Nation. With recent
events with some of our troubled young people, it's even more
important that we take this focus now.
Members here have already mentioned some of the
alternatives to juvenile justice and also some of the decrease.
Let me tell you a bit about our work and our charge.
Youth Villages is a nonprofit organization serving more
than 23,000 at-risk youth and their families in 12 States and
the District of Columbia, and even in these States of some of
the members here, and also in this judge's court. Our
organization has received numerous accomplishments, but part of
them are focused on the issues that were mentioned here
already: Cost effectiveness and positive results and impacts.
That has been our focus.
In my role as Youth Villages' chief clinical officer over
the last 26 years, I've led the development and implementation
of intervention aimed at improving the outcomes of at-risk
youth. But I want to be clear, we did not start there.
Initially, all that we were was a congregate care lockup
facility. At that point in time, we had a good bit of outcome
research that showed, surprisingly to us, that the more
treatment that we provided in a group setting, the worse the
kids did. Imagine our chagrin when we found out the longer they
stayed, the worst they did.
At that point in time, we changed our intervention strategy
and focused on intensive in-home services, particularly
Intercept and multisystemic therapy, which addresses the needs
of youth who have been involved in the juvenile justice system
and in the foster care system.
Many of the youths, as Sloane mentioned here today, have
challenges, but these trajectories can be changed. These young
people come from chaotic, troubled, and it's already been
mentioned here the trauma that these young people have is dire.
The families are in dire circumstances. And more importantly,
in many locations, many people believe that these youth are
beyond repair. These youth have had trauma, they have real
challenges in thinking skills, and now over the past 10 years
we know even more about the impact of growing up in trauma and
impact on adolescent brain development. We know more now.
So many of our programs now focus on changing these
trajectories. It is intensive, it's family focused, it's cost
effective, with a major focus on safety, a major focus on the
impact on victims, and that most of these youth have been
victims themselves.
A quick story about Ben, a young person that we worked with
in our multisystemic therapy program. Forty criminal charges
before we became involved with him. After that, he was placed
in our multisystemic therapy program. He and his family were
seen for 3 weeks and remarkably did well. And even when he got
finished, went back to some of the people that he had stolen
from and asked for an apology and apologized to them and
offered to work for them for free.
So there is evidence and strong evidence that the interest
in community-based services works. We can do more. Initially,
when we started, initially with judges, like this one next to
me, it was a tough sell, because they were concerned about
community safety, and certainly that is true. But our results
started speaking for themselves, and our programs were
strengthening families and strengthening communities.
Seventy-five percent of youth, as has been mentioned here
before, in youth facilities are confined for nonviolent
offenses. The interesting part is that these children, these
young people, they will come home, and they will be taxpayers,
and they will vote. And so we need to do what needs to be done
now to be able to make certain that happens.
And as has been noted, scientific evidence suggests that
incarceration is not developmentally appropriate and that youth
confinement may actually lead to a higher risk of reoffending
later in life. Our experience has shown that these programs
work as long as they are family focused, they allow us to
address the root issues within families, and they allow us to
focus on the concrete needs of all families. And it's also cost
effective, on average $426 a day for youth in a residential
setting compared to $100 a day for our programs.
I believe that our work demonstrates that alternatives to
juvenile incarceration are not only necessary, but possible and
cost effective, because these youth will be back in your
community. Ultimately, this benefits everyone, because these
stronger families mean stronger neighborhoods and stronger
communities.
Thank you very much for your interest and allowing us to
speak.
[The testimony of Mr. Goldsmith follows:]
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Chairman Kline. Thank you, sir.
Thanks to all the witnesses. You stayed within the time
limits remarkably well.
I'll remind my colleagues that we're going to be limited to
4 minutes, because we have the hard stop at 11:45, just over an
hour. So I'll recognize myself for 4 minutes.
I'm just going to keep going with you, Dr. Goldsmith. You
were on a good roll there. We hear a lot, I hear a lot, about
how one-size-fits-all approach is not very effective, that you
need multiple approaches. Could you just take a couple of
minutes and elaborate on why multiple approaches are needed and
why they work?
Mr. Goldsmith. Certainly. It's interesting when you note
that a good number of youth, when they go through the juvenile
justice system, typically for the first time, they are
typically referred for two things, individual therapy and
parenting classes. And I know the judge knows this.
Some of the judges also know that the number one least
effective intervention for youth like this is individual
therapy. The dilemma is, in many courts across the Nation, is
that they have no other options. They provide what they can
unless the judges have worked with their States and with their
Federal legislatures to provide services.
So most of these youth who come in we work with in multiple
systems. We work with the family, we work with the youth
individually, we work with school systems, we work within the
community, and most importantly for these young people, we work
with their peer groups.
So the one size, really, you are exactly right, does not
fit all. You have to work across multiple systems to provide
impacts. When you think of a parent who had a negative
experience in school, and perhaps were a dropout themselves,
and then you ask them to go and advocate for their youth in
that school system where perhaps that same principal was the
person who kicked the parent out.
So it takes a tremendous amount of work across multiple
areas that focuses on a large number of different strategies
and a large number of different interventions for parents. I
have yet to meet a parent that did not want to be a good
parent. Lots of times they just don't know how.
Chairman Kline. Thank you very much.
I yield back and now recognize Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just follow up with Dr. Goldsmith. How does the
bill, the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act, fund the
programs that you're recommending?
Mr. Goldsmith. I'm not fully familiar with all of the
different components of how the bill funds these. I know that
it has a focus on delivering alternatives to juvenile justice
services, and it was the initial start of that. Some of the
components that the judge mentioned in terms of confinement are
also a component of some of the programs that we serve,
particularly in reference to disproportionate minority
confinement. But I'm not familiar with all of the components of
that.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Judge Teske, I noticed that nobody suggested that we try
more juveniles as adults. Could you tell me what you can do for
a juvenile in juvenile court to reduce recidivism that criminal
court judges can't do?
Judge Teske. Yes, sir. You know, first, in distinguishing
the role of a juvenile court judge from an adult judge really
comes down to, you know, the juvenile and the adolescent brain
of the juvenile. I mean, you know, their frontal lobe isn't
developed until age 25, and that's the part that holds--
supposed to be holding the hands to the rest of our limbic
system. So, you know, and they are hormonally charged up. So we
have to be more patient with them. We have to give them time.
They are under neurological construction. I mean, they are
neurologically wired to do stupid things. Okay?
I'm not saying they're stupid, because they have a great
capacity to do wonderful things, but we can destroy that
capacity if we use a hammer, okay, to beat them up. And so we
need to slow down. We need to take the system, slow it down.
And to follow up, you know, on Dr. Goldsmith, keep in mind
there are eight criminogenic factors, there are eight causes of
delinquent behavior. And that's why, you know, the one-size-
fits-all can't work, because kids may have different reasons
for why they're committing delinquent acts. Family function,
their peers, substance abuse, cognition, okay?
And so what we are able to do is that we can fashion
things, okay, a treatment plan. You know, in the adult world,
there are no treatment plans. It's either this, 1 to 5 years,
mandatory minimums, 20 years. I mean, who's talking about
fixing them? Put on probation, have conditions of probation,
now go and sin no more. We don't do that in the juvenile
justice system, or we shouldn't do that in the juvenile justice
system. We need to slow down, fashion treatment plans. It's not
about punishment, it's about helping fix these kids and their
families.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen, you mentioned Right on Crime is focused on
reducing crime and saving money in the process. Can you give a
few examples of programs that reduce crime and save money that
you have been involved in?
Mr. Cohen. Certainly. Just confining it to the State of
Texas alone, you know, over the last two legislative sessions,
two things we've engaged on are issues of ticketing, you know,
how do children come about getting these minor, these Class C
misdemeanors. In 2013, Senate bills 393 and 1114 functionally
removed the ability for ticketing on Class C misdemeanors from
school. Now, those misdemeanors in school, you know, basically
turned into an adult criminal record very, very quickly. We had
the same issue going on up until this last session with
truancy.
We had similar success in the State of West Virginia. West
Virginia had just passed their Senate bill 393, which had
addressed many of the confinement on status offense issues,
including truancy.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Cohen, my time is about to expire.
Chairman Kline. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. If you could provide those to us in writing, as
many of those programs you can, so we can review them, I'd
appreciate it.
Mr. Cohen. Be happy to sir.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Chairman Kline. Dr. Foxx, you're recognized for 4 minutes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our panel today. The information you've
provided has been very enlightening. I did have an opportunity
many years ago to work with a facility that worked with
children who'd been sexually and physically abused. And their
focus after many years became family centered. And I learned a
great deal at that time about the efficacy of family-centered
therapies and family-centered treatments. So I'm really pleased
to hear the comments that you all have been making about the
programs that you're highlighting here.
Dr. Goldsmith, I'll try to follow the example of my
chairman and ask you a question. You and other witnesses have
testified to the importance of using evidence-based
interventions, and my colleagues will tell you, I'm a big fan
of that. In your experience, how do you most accurately measure
interventions for their effectiveness?
Mr. Goldsmith. It's a great question, because lots of times
people have interventions with no evidence, and there are those
out there.
What we do in our programs, all of the evidence-based
strategies that we use, the best ones have what we call
fidelity measures. And so it's like having a plan and you want
to be certain that you follow the plan. And so we have measures
that we use in ours that allow us to track the integrity in how
closely the intervention strategy follows the way that the
model was developed.
That's most important, because lots of times people go to
training, they get some training, and then they leave, and then
they go out and attempt to implement the intervention. And if
there's no ongoing strategy to know are you doing this the way
it was designed, then it doesn't happen.
The second thing that we do at our organization that we
measure the impacts of our programs 6, 12, and 24 months post-
discharge, because we were looking for long-term, lasting
change. And what we want to be able to do is to show a funder,
a representative, a parent, if you put your child and you and
your family participate in this program, we can tell you what
the results are based on what your presenting issues are at 6,
12, and 24 months post-discharge across the five main areas
that impact juveniles, which would be school, association with
law enforcement, mental health needs, and return back to a
long-term care setting.
Those are the types of things that we measure, because
that's what people are interested in. Basically, if you finish
the program, are you in school and are you a functioning member
of society like all adolescents should be? So that's how we go
about doing this, fidelity measures and the outcome measures.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Kline. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Pocan, you're recognized.
Mr. Pocan. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
having this hearing. I know our Ranking Member Scott has made a
long career of trying to have juvenile justice reform, and
having this in this committee is really appreciated. So thank
you.
Mr. Cohen, I am one of the more progressive Members of this
body, and I'm big fan on Right on Crime. I spent about 20
minutes last year on the phone with Grover Norquist and talking
to him specifically about this. And I know Ranking Member Scott
asked you to share with us in writing some of the other
reforms. My question is, how many States are you currently
doing this in with Right on Crime is active? Do you know that?
Mr. Cohen. Yes. If we're including adult interventions as
well, we are active in about 39 States.
Mr. Pocan. Thirty-nine States. That's fantastic, because
this is an issue where, you know, again, we've been tough on
crime and tough on crime, but I think we're finally getting
smart on crime, and we're working together.
And this is, I think, a great collaboration.
On some of the programs that you're doing that you're aware
of, what can we do at the Federal level to help incentivize
some of these reforms?
Mr. Cohen. Well, to be honest with you, sir, I think the
important thing is to point out the successes that these
reforms have had in the States. These are reforms that have not
only saved money in the short term, they have also saved
exponentially more in the long run when we back out the cost of
repeat offending, back out the marginal cost of the justice
system. These are all areas of savings that we have for getting
the policy right.
You know, in Texas, I mentioned in my oral testimony, we
consolidated much of our juvenile system, prioritized the
regionalization, kept juveniles and treatment closer to home so
that they still can be integrated into their community, still
can be integrated into their school system. By that, we have
spent 16 percent less, and this is in nominal dollars over the
course of a decade. You know, with inflation that's almost 20
percent less. So these are the types of selling points that
should be made to the States.
Now, the States themselves, the police power, which
includes the juvenile justice system, ultimately belongs to the
States. The States should recognize it is in their best
interest that this what they can expect with these programs.
Mr. Pocan. Sure. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Let me ask you another question, it's a little bit of a
curve ball, I guess. But, unfortunately, some people, the
political season, still try to take advantage of this, and we
watched this in Nebraska in a congressional district where they
ran very much a Willie Horton type ad based on the reforms that
you're all advocating for and doing them in States like Texas.
Is there anything that we can do around that? Because I
think there's such a great left-right alliance on this. This
shouldn't be a partisan issue at all to try to move forward.
How can we try to stop that kind of behavior to try to really
move these issues forward?
Mr. Cohen. Well, I think the proof of concept to that
particular question is simply in the statistics. You know,
we've made these, some minor reforms in some cases, aggressive
reforms in others in the State of Texas, and we have the lowest
crime rate that we've had since 1968.
The reforms advocated by Right on Crime is not tantamount
to soft on crime. You know, we still punish. However, we just
make sure that when we do we just don't take the--you know, to
borrow from the doctor and the judge--we don't take a one-size-
fits all approach. You know, if we have a low-level offender
that could be better treated in the community and at no cost to
public safety, let's do that. That is going to cost us 10 times
less than it is to actually reserve bed space for that issue.
And that person is going to still pay taxes, that person is
going to still maintain contact with their family, they are
still going to work their job. These are all benefits that you
don't have if you just incarcerate as a knee-jerk reaction.
Mr. Pocan. Thank you.
And, Mr. Chairman, just in closing, in Wisconsin, I was in
the legislature. Scott Walker, as a State legislator, Gwen
Moore, as a State legislator, and I had helped placed a ban on
placing juveniles at the supermax prison. We used to have 16-
and 17-year-old kids there. So it can really work. And I just
want to, again, applaud Right on Crime and what they're doing.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Kline. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Rokita, you're recognized.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Chairman.
And good morning, everyone. I appreciate everyone's
testimony.
Back when I used to practice law, I did a bit of juvenile
law. And Judge, I will tell you, it really didn't matter,
frankly, what my clients did, my goal was to try to keep them
out of the system, because if they succumbed to the system we
were going to lose them forever, most likely.
And your professional testimony, each one of you, reaffirms
that today, that I thought I was doing the right thing back
then. That doesn't mean we let them go. We really presented the
court with a lot of strong options and consequences and tried
to take care of the problem ourselves.
And that was 20 years ago, and it seems like the practice,
the industry, even if you want to call it that, has gotten a
lot better, and your testimonies are proof of that.
I really only have two questions. The first one would be to
Mr. Cohen. I want you to reemphasize what it takes, from an
options perspective, to not let these persons become repeat
offenders.
Mr. Cohen. Certainly. And that's, you know, I would
actually throw back also to the testimonies from Dr. Goldsmith
and Judge Teske, as well, is that the--
Mr. Rokita. Please. I'll let them comment too.
Mr. Cohen. The one-size-fits-all approach, it never works.
And that's also why Right on Crime specifically advocates for
keeping most of the juvenile justice interventions at least
primarily a State-level initiative, because the offenders in
Texas aren't going to look like the offenders in Alaska and
California, Vermont, et cetera.
So having multiple options because of the varying
criminogenic risk factors, having multiple options because of
the various factors that cause the intersection with the
criminal justice system are all issues that need to be
addressed, and those are best sussed out at the local level,
the people who have the most hands-on data for what their
specific needs for the juvenile system is going to look like.
So what we did in Texas, or one of the general models that
we use in Texas is that we have a commitment-based refunding
model. In other words, once we set a baseline of how many
people are referred to the State, anything above that baseline
they have to pay for, anything below that baseline they get a
bit of a refund for. This is a kind of a micro version of the
incentive-based funding models that you see a lot of the
providers use in other States.
Mr. Rokita. Judge, same question, anything to add there?
Judge Teske. I agree with Mr. Cohen. In Georgia, we've done
the same thing. We have a juvenile justice reinvestment
program.
The problem has been in the past, going back 20 years ago,
is what I call the default problem, where judges are looking at
a kid, and they don't want the kid to go to jail, to be
committed to the State, but they say: ``But I don't have
anything in the community for this kid.'' So by default, they
do that. So we had to get money to the local level just like
Texas, and that's how we did it.
But specific to your question is this: We need to follow
what we now know, after 40 years of research, which has made
juvenile justice truly a specialized field, okay, and
distinguishes us from the adult court judges is very simple.
There is what's called the risk principle, the needs principle,
the responsivity principle, and the treatment principle. I
don't have time, of course, to go into it. But as I once told
Congressman Scott about 2010, Google it. Just go to ``what
works in community corrections juvenile justice'' and you can
get it, and that's how we're supposed to do it.
Mr. Rokita. And, Doctor, let me have you yield. I want to
get to Mr. Baxter, if you don't mind, in 15 seconds.
Mr. Baxter, what advice do you have for kids coming up and
following in your footsteps, so to speak, so that they don't
get trapped in the system?
Mr. Baxter. I would have to say, the biggest thing for me
was my peers and seeing how they were affected differently
because they couldn't express themselves differently. So their
perspective was very statistical.
I would probably say--
Mr. Rokita. How do they avoid your missteps?
Chairman Kline. The gentleman's time has, unfortunately,
expired.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you very much.
Chairman Kline. Ms. Fudge, you're recognized.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Ranking Member Scott.
I thank you all for being here today.
Judge Teske, in your experience, what effect does poverty
have on the youth you see in your courtroom, part one? And are
there any programs that you are aware of that deal both with
rehabilitation of the young person, but also pathways out of
poverty for their families?
Judge Teske. Excellent question. Poverty, as we know from
the research, can drive crime. And it's about time that we
start taking a look at poverty as a driver of crime and
developing programs around that.
Let me just put this in a nutshell, okay? We need to study
juvenile crime like we study diseases, all right? You identify
at-risk populations, identify the causation, and then develop a
treatment plan.
Diseases don't occur by chance. Diseases are not randomly
distributed. Disruptive behaviors don't occur by chance. They
are not randomly distributed. They can easily be studied and
they can be fixed. But when we study them, we find what the
drivers are. I've already mentioned that there are eight of
them, but we're finding out there's one, I think eventually
there will be one called trauma added to it.
But even deeper than that, the reason there's a lot of
trauma is because we get it from our poor kids who are coming
to the court. Eighty percent, we do trauma assessment in our
court, as much as 80 percent of the kids who come in our court
have been traumatized. Traumatized people traumatize people,
okay?
Now, what are the programs to do that? There's a number of
them, have been mentioned here: Functional family therapy,
multisystemic therapy, cognitive restructuring. The seven
challenges in terms of drug treatment. But it must go much
deeper than that. We must build relationships in our community
among both the private and the public sector, the businesses as
well as the public.
What we've done in Clayton County is we developed an
independent backbone agency with a board of directors. The
school system, which houses kids every day, Monday through
Friday, they send the chronically disruptive kids to this
independently backbone agency to do what? To assess, develop a
treatment plan, monitor, get programs in the home, and most of
them are poor families.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you very much.
And I want to go back to Mr. Sloane. First, I'm sure that
you hear from people all the time, Mr. Baxter, how proud we are
of you. And I am proud of you today. And I thank you so much
for being here. And I thank you for providing your deeply
personal account of how you ended up here today.
So my question for you is, what do you think that we can
do, what kinds of positive interventions or interactions that
we can have with young people before they get to Oak Hill?
Mr. Baxter. One of the things that worked for me best was I
always had someone talking to me who knew a little bit more
about things than I did. So regardless of where I was, there
was always someone who would notice me, because I would observe
things where I was at. I didn't really get into the physical
aspect of being in these facilities and things like that. I was
more of a--I had to stimulate my mind almost to keep sane.
So with that being said, the biggest thing was people
believing in me, because with someone believing in you, they
have to give you responsibility, and with responsibility
becomes failure. Failure makes you learn on your own. So I
would say them giving me the firsthand opportunity to fail or
succeed on my own.
Ms. Fudge. Well, thank you. I think you're a great success.
Thank you for being here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Kline. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Walberg, you're recognized.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
hearing today. It brings me back to a number of years ago when
I was in the State legislature, and while my wife and I were
away, our oldest son was assaulted on a bicycle trail, the
bicycle destroyed. And, fortunately, he didn't lose his eye.
Two thugs, juvenile delinquents, as they were called, beat him.
And what was frustrating was when we offered an opportunity
to the courts for alternatives to incarceration in a juvenile
home, and that alternative was for them to spend the month of
August with our family, my son, who they had beat, and myself,
scraping our barn and painting our barn together, and suffering
the wonderful opportunity to eat my wife's home food cooking,
but more than anything, we thought it would give an opportunity
for an alternative for them to see victims as human beings, and
for our family to work in turn with them attempting to right a
wrong.
And that wasn't allowed by the courts. And I know one of
those went on--both went to juvie home and one went on to
prison subsequent to that. So the hearing today, this
discussion is important.
Dr. Goldsmith, how does work fit in when we discuss the
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act?
Mr. Goldsmith. I'm sorry, I don't fully understand.
Mr. Walberg. How does work fit in? I guess I'm talking
about the dignity of work. We often today don't talk about work
being dignified. Any work, any good work, is dignified, no
matter how much remuneration you make. How does that fit into
the Delinquency Prevention Act?
Mr. Goldsmith. Right. Right. As been mentioned here, it was
a critical component. You heard Mr. Baxter talk about his work
experience now. And it's all part of the community systems that
we try to embed youth in when you work in in-home, family-
focused community systems. Part of that system is the
community, and you try to find those support systems within
that community. Work is an essential component of where that
can occur.
Another one of our programs works with youth who are
exiting the juvenile justice system. And we just finished a
randomized clinical trial of that program with good success. A
big component of that is the educational and vocational aspects
of youth becoming involved in their community and involved as a
taxpaying, working citizen.
So over and over and over again our impact show the greater
exposure they have to law-abiding, working adults, the better
their experience later.
Mr. Walberg. And meaningful work opportunities?
Mr. Goldsmith. Yes, sir. I mean, I would imagine if you
showed up in Judge Teske's court with the exact same case, he
would probably go with you, would be my suspicion.
Mr. Walberg. I would hope. I would hope so.
Mr. Goldsmith. But those sorts of opportunities are rare,
quite honestly, because, as Mr. Baxter has mentioned, lots of
times when you get into systems, they see these kids as beyond
repair, and they just need a consequence. And if you really
stop and read files about what do these kids actually
experience, it is horrendous.
Mr. Walberg. Let me just jump over to Mr. Baxter and ask,
what challenges did you face in trying to find meaningful work?
Mr. Baxter. I do home improvement on the side now, but I
was doing it with my dad for a while, and it wasn't something I
would see myself doing for a longevity of time because of how
strenuous it is. Outside of that, because he was my dad, he, of
course, gave me a job, but I started wanting more independence
for myself to say I did it for myself.
Mr. Walberg. Okay.
Mr. Baxter. Kind of with, like, negative and positive
reinforcement.
Mr. Walberg. Some of those that you see in the juvie system
right now, what challenges did you see for them in getting
that? You went on and did your own.
I see my time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. I'm going to rescue you, Mr. Baxter. The
gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. DeSaulnier, you're recognized.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you and the ranking member for this hearing and the panelists.
I'm going to date myself. I worked for a juvenile court in
the '70s, in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I've
always had interest in this because of that through local
government in California and State government.
But what I want to ask you about, particularly Mr. Cohen
and the judge, is sustainable funding. So in California, one of
the things we struggle with is when the economy is doing well
we put money into intervention and prevention, particularly for
young people. We now know what the best investments are, but
bringing that to scale and maintaining it has been a struggle.
Might be somewhat unique to California because we depend too
much on capital gain tax, so when we're doing well, we do this.
But because juvenile probation doesn't have a big political
constituency, it's always a struggle.
So at one point when I was in local government the
Foundation Consortium in California, Irvine and Packard, came
to us at the State level and the local level and said: We're
not funding any more programs unless you do a reinvestment
strategy. And over generations we know you can save money if
you do intervention, prevention.
So can you talk a little bit about sustainable funding,
knowing we know what is going to be the best even though it
takes, as you say, not one-size-fits-all. Judge, could you talk
about it a little bit? Maybe Mr. Cohen.
Judge Teske. Yes, sir. Let me use first RECLAIM Ohio,
because they were the first in the country to do reinvestment
and redirect, established in 1995, yet it survived, okay, the
economic turndown. And so I'd like to use that as a model
picture for, you know, sustainability in terms of funding in
the most difficult times.
And what it's really about--and it's going to depend on
each State, whether it's a home rule State or whatever, in
terms of how it governs. But in Georgia, you know, what
Governor Deal has done is say: Okay, we are going to create a
special line item, okay, we're going to put it in the
Department of Juvenile Justice budget. We are going to have
staff around that, manage that. You know, the devil's in the
details.
What's happened because of these reforms, bed space has
gone down. So, for example, those counties, which are many,
that have received the reinvestment money--we call them
incentive grants--the commitment rate is down 62 percent. Okay?
So imagine how that resonates in terms of funding. Already, in
the short time, we have already saved the State $85 million.
Okay?
Now, not all $85 million needs to go back into juvenile
justice, right? Okay? So everyone is winning on this, including
the infrastructure of the State, whether it be transportation
or whatever, but we are dedicating those moneys, okay, on this
formula basis, to go--now, the reason we got the money much
sooner is because Governor Deal smartly said--asked the
legislature for $5 million, okay, to hurry up and field this
and get it started quick so the reinvestment money can be
realized sooner.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen, I don't want to exceed the chair's admonition
about my 4 minutes, so if you could just briefly.
Mr. Cohen. Certainly. And Judge Teske did very well to
point towards Ohio's RECLAIM program insofar as how a juvenile
justice reinvestment strategy could work.
The only thing I would add to that conversation is, I am
not aware of a particular model of jump-starting a reinvestment
that doesn't require at least a small modicum of upfront costs.
Now, you can expect to recoup that cost in a very short time
horizon on many of these programs, but to think that it's
nothing but just a downhill cost slope is a bit premature.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
I yield the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Carter, you're recognized.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, gentlemen, thank you all for being here.
Let me start off by saying for the past 10 years I have had
the honor of serving in the Georgia State Legislature. And
during the legislative session of 2013, I was actually
cosponsor of the juvenile justice reform that you speak of,
Judge Teske, and we passed that during that session. It was
signed into law in May of 2013 by Governor Deal.
As you just stated, it went into effect in October of 2014,
and in a 9-month period we've seen a 62 percent decrease in
cost. And that program has really turned out to be a great
program. We're very proud of it there.
What I want to ask you very quickly is that, you know,
phase one, which included new intake procedures, education, and
family support, we saw the felony commitments go down, as I
mentioned. Do you believe that works, the family support and
the education part of it?
Judge Teske. Yes, sir, it does. And by the way, let me say
thank you for your yea vote, okay.
Mr. Carter. Sure.
Judge Teske. Yes. So we use, to give you an example, most
of the counties now, if not pretty much--maybe all of them, but
by far most of them use functional family therapy and
multisystemic therapy, because the number one cause of
delinquency by way of research is family function. Okay? So if
you have family dysfunction, that becomes the greatest cost.
So you want to create the best protective buffer, and
that's to build up the family, which means you have to get into
the home to do it. You have to stop just treating the child.
You have to look at the family, which tends to be many of the
origin of the attitudes and other behaviors of the child
leading to delinquency.
Yes, we have found it to be true. My probation officers are
tickled pink that they have FFT. They are seeing a difference
in the parents.
Mr. Carter. Well, let me mention also that while I was in
the Georgia State Senate, I also served as chairman of State
Institutions and Properties, which included being on the
Appropriations Committee, and being over appropriating for
corrections. And we were faced with cuts that we were forced to
make as a result of the decrease in revenue in our State.
And part of those cuts that we made were to move some of
these low, like truancy and curfew violations that we had in
the most secure juvenile beds, we moved them down to the less
secure and to the family and at-home probation.
And Mr. Baxter, what I want to ask you is this. Now, please
understand where I'm coming from. I ask you this because I
suspect that you know people who have been through both the
most secure facilities and the less secure facilities. Can you
tell a difference in those people?
Mr. Baxter. Yes, I can. I'd say the ones that had the
higher security are 9 times out of 10 they are more likely to
come out worse than they were when they first went in. When
they come back, they are more aggressive. When they come back,
they are out of tune with society, things, update in technology
and everything is always up, up, up, up, up. They come home,
nothing's the same.
So now you've taken somebody and you've erased everything
they know, put them somewhere, taught them something, that it's
either prey or predator almost when you're there. So when you
come back out, they have that same mentality because nothing is
there to prevent that from happening.
So it's a recycled mentality. So they do come out worse
when it's a higher level of security as opposed to a program
that implements skills to go back into society.
Mr. Carter. Great. Thank you, Mr. Baxter, for being here.
Thank all of you for being here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman.
Ms. Wilson, you're recognized.
Ms. Wilson of Florida. Thank you.
Chairman Kline, I was excited to hear that you were calling
a hearing on the subject of prevention and reduction of
juvenile delinquency. As you know, I have dedicated my life to
saving young men of color from the juvenile and criminal
justice system. So I'm delighted for this committee to take up
this issue, and I welcome the panelists here today.
I also applaud Ranking Member Scott for his tireless
leadership and unwavering dedication to this issue. I know we
share the strong commitment to preventing poor outcomes for at-
risk youth, especially young men of color.
From my personal experience as a school principal, I know
how important it is to reach children and give them the
support, encouragement, and resources they need to make good
choices for themselves and their futures. I also think there
should be greater emphasis on school-based intervention and
prevention programs.
Almost a quarter of a century ago, I founded the 5000 Role
Models of Excellence Program, a program that has provided a
model for dropout prevention initiatives across the Nation.
Since its inception, 5000 Role Models has awarded more than $10
million in scholarship to minority boys and helped thousands of
young men turn their lives around.
There are 98 chapters in the Miami-Dade County Public
Schools, the fourth-largest school district in the Nation. Both
Representative Curbelo and I represent them. There are 70
chapters in Pinellas County Public Schools, which is St.
Petersburg, Florida. And there are 40 chapters in Duval County
Public Schools, which is Jacksonville, Florida.
They take field trips to prisons, jails, and courtrooms so
they can see firsthand how their actions can impact their
lifelong goals. They have choices, extremely important choices.
So they are exposed to the right choices and the wrong choices.
They tour colleges, universities, and technical
institutions. The 5000 Role Models founded its own fire college
to train emergency medical technicians and future firefighters
for the entire State of Florida. We partner with Cadillac
dealerships, the firefighters union, the pipefitters union, and
the Port of Miami to train its future workforce.
These young men are also taught to respect the law, respect
women, respect teachers, and others who are in charge. They
learn to respect their elders, their parents, respect their
peers, and respect themselves. They learn all this from people
who love them and take time to listen to them.
This is a school-based program that encourages these boys
of color to remain engaged in school. Studies show that when
children are more behaviorally and emotionally engaged in
school, they are less likely to be delinquent. As we move
forward, I urge my colleagues to focus on this connection and
how reauthorization of JJDPA can reflect this reality.
Mr. Baxter, I want to commend you for your work and turning
your life around. Can you tell me, do you think you would have
benefited from an in-school-based program to give you the
encouragement, support, and one-on-one mentoring you needed at
the time when you said you were in trouble and probation did
not help you?
Mr. Baxter. I did a few school things. One, I can't
remember the name of the program, but it was basically a
metropolitan police program where they have certain officers
inside schools and they pick, like, one or two students out of
the school to go to this program. I can't remember the name of
it, but that was one.
But Boys Town also helped me out a lot because any facility
that I was at, I was at a different school now. Chelsea School
is basically a private school for kids with LD. So the times
that I got sent out of State, my counselor would hop on the
horn and bring me my work so I could stay caught up on IEP and
my curriculum. So, yes, school does help a whole lot, yes.
Ms. Wilson of Florida. I yield back.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Bishop, you're recognized.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to all of you that have come to testify today
on such an important subject. I want to thank the chair for
taking this subject up and giving us some time for us to
discuss.
I've got kind of a unique perspective. I was a former
prosecutor, but also a former defense attorney, so I've seen
both sides of this. And I have also kind of witnessed firsthand
the mentality in the judicial system with regard to crime and
that in many cases the solution is always throwing the book at
whomever that person is in front of the court that day, as if
that would solve all problems.
We know firsthand that, in fact, that's not the case, and
especially this is true with the Nation's youth. There are
opportunities to intervene. There are opportunities to provide
alternative sentencing in ways to address issues that aren't
necessarily just punitive in nature.
That's why I'm really grateful that, Mr. Baxter, you're
here today to really share. I think it's very brave of you to
be here, for you to share your personal experience, to use that
negative in your life as a positive, to help influence others
in the future. And the fact that you are here today discussing
public policy and ways that you can take your experience and
expand it across the board for everybody to benefit from, I'm
proud of you, and I just want you to know that. I'm very proud
of you for being here today. And I'll give you a chance to
speak.
I wanted to ask you, you were talking about when you were
14 years old and you broke that window that day, did you have
any experience beforehand? Tell me about your family
experience. I know you said there was alcohol involved at the
time. Did you have an intact family unit? Tell me about what
was in your mind that day that caused you to go down that path.
Mr. Baxter. On that day I just wanted to get away. I wanted
to get away from everything. A car means you're mobile. So I
could go anywhere I wanted to at the time. But of course, I was
unsuccessful at that.
The biggest thing was I was trying to control something
that I had no control over. My parents tried to control me, and
they didn't have control over me either. So it's basically that
challenge, when things--the perspective I had then was moreso
like if one thing doesn't go your way and you start out as an
A, it is harder to maintain an A than it is to start from an F
and make it all the way back up.
So that was kind of me wanting things to be right, wanting
people to notice, getting the attention to make that
difference, but I just expressed it in the wrong way, which
eventually cost me more in the end.
Mr. Bishop. So, obviously, you weren't thinking of the
consequences down the line. You were expressing yourself at the
time. But you indicated that you have had experience in both
the heavy, traditional form of incarceration and also with Boys
Town. What lessons did you learn at Boys Town that got you
where you are today? I'm impressed by the fact that you have
just absolutely turned your life around and now are using your
lesson as a tool for good.
Mr. Baxter. They definitely give you social skills. So far
as time management, which I still work on that one, there's
some other ones, being self-reliant, and everyday things,
disagreeing appropriately, which was a really big one. And
that's a really big one for youth all around the board as well.
That's something that we don't know how to do. There's debate
and there's argument. You know, there's no disagree
appropriately, that's unheard of.
They also have a point card system, which basically keeps
track of your positive and your negative behaviors for the day,
which reinforces if you'll have your privileges at the end of
the week or you don't. If you don't, you have to work on skills
every day until you make those privileges back.
So it's something that you end up internalizing after a
while because it's actually what you want. They give you more
responsibility. The more you learn, the more responsibility you
get.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, sir.
I yield back.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman.
Ms. Clark you're recognized.
Ms. Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Scott.
And to Mr. Baxter, I just want to say first, we all
struggle with time management, as the chairman can tell you.
Chairman Kline. Some more than others.
Ms. Clark. But mainly, I want to thank you for giving voice
to millions of young people with your testimony today and just
tell you how much I admire your courage and your eloquence and
the way you're building your life.
And we have seen great successes, and I'm grateful to the
panel not only for being here today, for your work over the
past few decades, and really the decrease that we've seen in
juveniles who are in the criminal justice system overall. We
have come very far from when I was a prosecutor in the early
'90s and we had the mythology that was so corrosive to our
public policies of the superpredator juvenile that was, you
know, coming to our families and to our homes. And I'm very
grateful that we have come so far.
But there is one trend that we're seeing that is alarming
to me, that arrests among girls have grown by 45 percent and
detention has grown 40 percent while we're seeing an overall
decrease. And for girls of color, this is even more startling,
3 times as likely to be referred to a court and 20 percent more
likely to be detained. A recent report just came out that said
girls are over four times more likely than boys to have been
sexually abused before their juvenile justice involvement.
So my question to you, and we touched, Chief Judge Teske,
on this in your testimony and in response to some questions
before, is trauma-informed practices are critical to how we do
this. Can you explain a little bit, in a practical manner, what
that means in the courtroom?
Judge Teske. Yes. First of all, in a practical way, it
means, first of all, very basic, is making sure that doors
don't slam and make noises. It means stop shackling kids in the
courtroom that don't need to be shackled.
Ms. Clark. Do you see higher rates of shackling for girls?
Judge Teske. Well, there are still plenty of jurisdictions
that do indiscriminate shackling. They shackle everyone who
comes into the courtroom, regardless of the nature of the crime
they are charged with, which is counterintuitive to the
presumption of innocence.
But other things, you know, we need to be more practical. I
can help explain the increase. We changed the laws around
domestic violence. So now the States have, you know, when the
police arrive, whoever the predominant aggressor is, identify
that person and remove them.
Well, because girls, with their unique needs and the trauma
that many of them suffer, their behavior becomes their
language. His behavior became his language. And so they pick up
a knife. But that's just what they're doing, they're trying to
speak. They do it through their behavior. They get arrested.
That's when you start seeing the increases.
If we can start looking at exceptions and mitigating
factors for girls in these circumstances, we're going to do
better off.
Ms. Clark. Thank you. And can you tell me, implementing
these trauma-informed practices, have you seen a difference in
recidivism? Do you have those stories to tell?
Judge Teske. Yes, I do, and I can send those to you. I will
be glad to do that, because I know we're getting ready to run
out of time. But, yeah, I'll be glad to it.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Judge Teske. But, yes, it's not anecdotal. You know, we do
have statistics around that where trauma-informed practices
make a difference.
Ms. Clark. Thank you.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentlelady. And everybody's
awareness of time management has gone up.
Mr. Allen, you're recognized.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, panel, for sharing your work here with us
today.
And, Mr. Baxter, you have incredible testimony. And I would
just like to ask you first, obviously, you are mentoring
younger people. What is it that you share with them that would
have made a difference which would have turned your life around
before you went down the--I mean, do you have to experience
these? Do you have to experience these things like, you know,
youth detention and things like that to learn a lesson or is
there some way we can get to them early before they actually
make maybe the same mistakes you did?
Mr. Baxter. I think it's definitely a way to get to it
before it happens. One way, I think Ms. Wilson was saying, was
definitely about school, because school is directly connected
to your home. That's the only way that you would be able to get
in between that, between the community, the youth, and the
school. So these are all things that are kind of necessity for
us to have something on our mind at all times.
Then I didn't really know, you know, the perspective of an
adult to a youth, You know, so I was kind of lost. And me being
lost, I was trying to find my way. So, yeah, I might have known
you touch a stove you might get burned, I know that, but I'm
going to do it anyway, you know, to see what the--how it goes.
You know, so I was curious, I was very, very curious because no
one was telling me anything. So I had to find out on my own.
So something I would have to say would be schools, schools
oriented.
Mr. Allen. Judge, you and Governor Deal have worked
extensively on this justice reform in Georgia, and I
congratulate you on your efforts.
You know, one of the things that's concerning to--should be
concerning to all of us is the fact that, for whatever reason,
the family is not working. And it's very difficult out there
for our kids. I mean, they are the ones that suffer. What do
you see as--how can we restore the family unit in this country?
Judge Teske. I made reference to it earlier, but I'll mine
it down a little bit further, and that is in our local
communities building collaborative relationships that laser
focus on our families. My suggestion would be that the best
formula is to identify the kids who are dropping out of school.
I mean, who would ever think that keeping kids in school would
improve graduation rates, okay, you know? But the thing is, is
that how goes graduation, so goes crime.
And so that's why juvenile justice is so important, because
all kids become adults. If you want better adults, then help
our kids. And so what that means is, is that the formula goes
like this: Develop a profile of the kids dropping out of
school, then determine their needs. You are going to find that
most of the kids dropping out are from poverty and are
traumatized.
Then you have to develop a collaborative community plan
that strategically addresses that. And like I said, what
communities are doing now are developing these independent
backbone agencies that are referral sources, and that's the
laser focus that gets into the homes where schools can't get,
courts can't get, you see, yeah.
Mr. Allen. Yeah, schools have a tough time. We had a
superintendent say: You know, I could do a lot better job if I
had better parents.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman.
Mrs. Davis, you're recognized.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I certainly look
forward to a strong bipartisan reauthorization of the juvenile
justice bill.
I really appreciate Mr. Baxter. We always point to whoever
is here, the young person who--because it's important. It's so
important to hear that voice. And so I appreciate the fact that
you, you know, related to the fact that people would need to be
up to date on technology. The world kind of like has gone by
when someone's in a detention facility that is not reaching out
in the way of bringing people up to date.
But I also wanted to ask you more about the training of
staff, of individuals, of providers in a few areas. Certainly,
in terms of anything related to sexual assault, abuse, and also
how they deal with racial implicit bias, cultural competency.
Did you see a big difference in terms of the staff that you
interacted with in different facilities, the community versus a
detention facility? And what can we, what should we be doing?
Is this something that should be built in any kind of
legislation that we do, that we're making sure that people are
being trained properly?
Mr. Baxter. I'm glad you asked that question. There's a
difference in training very much from a person who is at a
detention center from someone who is at a residential campus
that teaches you things. The residential campuses, of course,
they have minor defense for themselves. At these facilities,
that's all they're doing. All they're doing is managing people.
You know, you don't really have a voice, so they're managing
physical bodies. That's their job. Their job is hands on.
With other programs and things, programs like his, [Mr.
Goldsmith's] they have to find out who you are first and then
they put things in your way for you to run back around and get,
almost as planting a small seed and letting it grow.
So, yes, the training is very different so far as between
detention centers and places like Boys Town, or in things like
that, because they don't have the skills in these facilities,
lockdown facilities, they don't have the skills. They're not
trained on that. You know, they're not trained to emotionally
stabilize someone, or anything, or give them too much more
knowledge outside of what they may already know. So, yes.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. And for those of you, you know, Judge and
others, is it too naive to think that some of those skills
could be built into any facility, or do you think they are,
actually?
Judge Teske. Well, no, I think it is too naive, quite
frankly. I'm going to go out there because, think about it for
a moment, in Georgia, 65 percent of all kids who go into a
secure facility reoffend within 3 years of getting out, and of
crimes much worse than what even put them in there. Forty
percent--nearly 40 percent of the kids we put in secure lockup
in Georgia were low-risk offenders. That's not a really good
investment on taxpayer dollar.
And I agree with Mr. Baxter, it's because when you put kids
in a secure facility you've separated them from their family.
We've all been--everyone here who's spoken has acknowledged
it's about the family. Well, how can you really be serious and
I be serious about fixing kids when we know family is number
one, but we put them in prison and take them away from their
family? And now I'll shut up.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. I think my time is almost up.
I wanted to just ask as we move forward, because this is
the Education and the Workforce Committee as well, of
understanding what kind of communication, what kind of support,
what kind of training is necessary to expand in our schools?
What would you build in? What would you like to see as we move
forward? And we know that there are great schools that do a
good job, but I think it should be part and parcel of
everything that we do, and appreciate your input.
Thank you.
Chairman Kline. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Curbelo.
Mr. Curbelo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Baxter, thank you for your very valuable testimony. You
have a very moving story, but it's also a personal story and it
takes courage and humility to state it in such a public forum.
So thank you very much also for giving us a good example of
what works and what doesn't work.
It's clear to me that we're in the midst of a fast-paced
evolution in the juvenile justice system. In Miami-Dade County
Public Schools, where I had the privilege of serving on the
board, as did my colleague Ms. Wilson, who you heard from
earlier, they have done away with out-of-school suspensions,
something that would have been unheard of just a few years ago
and something that I certainly support.
So it's clear that we're moving from a punishment-based
system to a rehabilitation-based system, from exclusion to
inclusion. What I want to ask you, and I will get to as many of
you as I can, is what do you think we can do through a
potential reauthorization to accelerate the pace of this
evolution and to really have a smart, youth-centered juvenile
justice system? I'll start with Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
Well, you mentioned out-of-school suspensions, and that was
an issue that we looked at briefly in the Texas Legislature.
You know, the issue with out-of-school suspension is that,
especially for an issue like truancy, you're going to punish
the child for skipping school by making sure that they don't go
to school. It just seems to be one of those nonsensical issues,
or nonsensical ways of addressing a serious issue.
When it comes to school discipline writ large and what the
Federal Government can do, I would actually say, again, it's
about making the information known of what has worked in the
various States that it has worked in. When it comes to some
sort of mandatory compulsion through a grant scheme, I'm not
necessarily sure that always is going to beget the outcomes
that this body wants simply because that creates a dependence
on the Federal Government for something that they should be
wanting to do themselves.
Now, you know, there are certain--there are practices that
probably should be incentivized over others, but that in and of
itself doesn't mean that the State or even the locality should
be going to the Federal Government looking for them to fund a
particular program when it's the State or the locality that
stands to reap the windfall of getting it right.
Mr. Curbelo. Mr. Baxter, do you think that there are
activities that we can incentivize through this reauthorization
to perhaps encourage more of the programs like the one that
saved your life through this reauthorization?
Mr. Baxter. Probably the most positive thing I can come out
with, that is most likely mentor programs, because like I said,
when I was young I just simply didn't have anyone to kind of go
through it with me or explain what exactly I was feeling. So I
would say mentor programs.
Mr. Curbelo. Thank you.
Anyone else have anything they'd like to add?
Judge Teske. Yes, sir. First of all, if you could go to the
2010 report from the Federal Advisory Committee for Juvenile
Justice, there is a chapter in there on the school-to-prison
pipeline that I chaired and helped draft that gives specific
recommendations.
But as to the reauthorization under DMC, kids of color in
some studies are six times more likely to be suspended out of
school than their white counterparts for the same offenses.
Okay?
So that's low-hanging fruit. If we can incentivize where
some way schools can develop, you know, alternatives to
suspension, like we in the courts are doing alternatives to
detention, you know, we could really, really hit this DMC issue
really good. And maybe also take a look at the IDEA, because up
to 70 percent of kids with disabilities have been reported
being incarcerated in juvenile facilities.
Mr. Curbelo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Grothman, you're recognized.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much.
A couple of questions. First of all, for Mr. Teske, you
mentioned a second ago the role that poverty plays in these
problems. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when people talk
about poverty, because to me poverty in our society is not--
when I think of poverty, it should be, you're old enough to
remember, pictures on Time magazine of Biafra or Bangladesh and
kids with protruding stomachs.
In our society, poverty means living in a heated and air-
conditioned apartment. Recently there was a study that, I
think, 85 or 80 percent of the people in poverty have at least
two TVs, most have cars, and such.
I'm going to ask you, is the problem kids living in poverty
or is the problem kids living with a difficult home life with a
welfare lifestyle? In other words, is it a material problem or
is it is a problem of parents providing a horrible role model
for their kids?
Judge Teske. The issue of poverty is extremely complex, and
I understand, you know, the foundation of your question and
distinguishing Bangladesh and here. And I certainly understand
that. Here in the United States, while there are some places,
even in Tennessee, the Smoky Mountains, there are folks who are
living without. But let's go to the urban area. That's really
what we're talking about.
Mr. Grothman. Not necessarily.
Judge Teske. Yeah, but, you know, in the urban area, you
know, when we talk about poverty, you know, we're talking about
the gunshots that he heard, okay, the alcoholism, and things
that all, that's true. But what's causing that to happen even
to the parents, okay, and especially given the fact that,
unfortunately, in this country we still have a problem of too
many people of color in poverty.
I'm just going to tell from you a white southern judge,
okay, which we were pretty good at Jim Crow laws enslaving
people of color, okay, I'm just going to tell you right now
it's a matter of histrionics. You know, after 300 years of
doing that, just because we have a whole lot of freedoms that
happen overnight doesn't mean that people can get out of that
hole overnight. So that--
Mr. Grothman. You're avoiding my question. Poverty is
normally an economically defined term. Is the problem an
economic one in which people do not have enough money or are we
dealing with more of a social situation in which we have people
who by historical and world standards are wildly wealthy?
Judge Teske. No, both. I'm sorry, sir.
Mr. Grothman. Do you see what I'm saying?
Judge Teske. It's both. It's both. But It's driven first by
money that then leads to all the social issues, as Mr. Baxter
is here shaking his head up and down because he personally
lived it, you know. And I see it too. I was a parole officer in
inner-city Atlanta for 10 years. I dealt with--
Mr. Grothman. Do you believe the problem is a lack of
things you can buy with money? Do you really think if somebody
is living in a two-bedroom, two-bath, air-conditioned apartment
with gadgets and enough food that you're obese, that the
problem is a money problem, or is it a role model problem with
the parents?
Judge Teske. Well, I think it's all of that. See, I'm not
disagreeing with you. I think it's all of that. The question
is, which came first, the chicken or the egg? You know, I mean,
you know, it's not only that they're living in a project, okay,
but it's where the projects are, with the guns and the drugs
and all of that around them that itself creates trauma.
Mr. Grothman. I'll ask the final question of Mr. Cohen.
One of the things that bothers me when you guys generate
statistics, and you're all good at generating statistics, is in
determining the root causes here, you know, you look at
educational achievement, or in poverty, however that's defined,
but you don't talk about family background. Could you give us
some statistics of family background, you know, the type of
family you're with, and the degree to which that is impacting
the people that wind up in the system?
Chairman Kline. Let me interrupt here. The gentleman's time
has expired. If you have that answer, Mr. Cohen, if you could
submit it for the record that would be very helpful.
Mr. Cohen. Will do.
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Chairman Kline. We're about 3 minutes away from a hard
stop. I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I
want to ask unanimous consent to submit a letter from Fight
Crime: Invest in Kids into the hearing record on behalf of Mr.
Thompson from Pennsylvania. Hearing no objection, the letter is
submitted.
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Chairman Kline. And I'll now recognize Mr. Scott for any
closing remarks he has.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I think we have heard a fairly consistent
message, particularly from Right on Crime, that we can reduce
crime and save money by making strategic investments in
prevention, early intervention, rehabilitation, especially
education, family therapy, and trauma-informed services.
Judge Teske mentioned that a way of doing this would be
through a process similar to the Youth PROMISE Act. We've heard
support of the core requirements, and it appears that there's a
consensus on approving the legislation.
So Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you as we
reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act, and ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a list
of policy recommendations from the Juvenile Justice Coalition
ACT4.
Chairman Kline. Without objection.
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Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman. I want to again
thank the witnesses. I will add my thanks and congratulations
and admiration to Mr. Baxter for boldly stepping forward and
sharing his story.
I commend you, everybody at the table. But the statistics
that Mr. Grothman was talking about in terms of recidivism and
lower incarceration all seem to be moving in the right
direction, exception being what Ms. Clark was talking about
with girls, with young women.
So we've got some work to do here. You've been very, very
helpful.
There being no further business, the committee stands
adjourned.
[Additional submission by Dr. Nolan follows:]
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[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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