[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 68 (Tuesday, May 5, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5135-H5136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   JUVENILE JUSTICE IMPROVEMENTS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of 
legislation that I recently introduced, along with several cosponsors, 
the Juvenile Justice Improvement Act.
  Mr. Speaker, every day in America, 90,000 youth are incarcerated in 
our juvenile correctional facilities. Seventy percent of these youth 
are held for noncriminal acts like running away or violating curfew. 
Instead of working with these youth and these families to identify the 
root of their problem and help them find alternatives to their negative 
behavior, our policy in too many places around this country is to 
simply lock them up. Even more shocking, 7,500 of our Nation's young 
people sit in adult jails on any given day, even though study after 
study has proven that that practice of putting youth in adult 
facilities only increases the likelihood of recidivism and puts them at 
risk amongst that sometimes very dangerous adult population.
  Sadly, these are not the only consequences of putting juveniles in 
the adult system. Keeping children safe in the adult juvenile justice 
system is extremely difficult. All too often, physical and sexual 
assault become commonplace. According to the Department of Justice's 
statistics division, 21 percent and 13 percent of all substantiated 
victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence in jails in 2005 and 2006 
respectively were youth under the age of 18. That number is 
disturbingly high when you take into account that juveniles account for 
only 1 percent of all

[[Page H5136]]

inmates. Thirteen percent of all sexual violence in our prisons is 
against these young people. They represent 1 percent of the total 
population. Moreover, and not surprisingly, youth have the highest rate 
of suicide in our jails. And as we know too well in Connecticut, 
placing juveniles with adults only exacerbates that problem.
  However, I'm hopeful that with this legislation, H.R. 1873, the 
Juvenile Justice Improvement Act, we can start to reverse these 
dangerous trends.
  Mr. Speaker, by keeping youth out of the adult criminal justice 
system and by using rehabilitative programs and services that are 
proven to try to help stop that cycle of crime, youth involved in these 
systems can emerge as proactive, positive and productive members of our 
community and of our workforce.
  Specifically, this bill would protect youth prosecuted as adults from 
being held in adult jails or lockups while awaiting trial except in 
very limited circumstances. In these limited circumstances, youth 
prosecuted as adults must be sight and sound separated from adults in 
that facility to help protect their safety. Fortunately, some States 
already allow youth who have been convicted as adults to serve their 
sentence in juvenile correctional facilities. H.R. 1873 would remove a 
provision in current law that penalizes these States for choosing to 
house youth convicted as adults in more appropriate settings while not 
endangering other youth in the facility.
  The Juvenile Justice Improvement Act would also work to keep youth 
out of locked facilities for noncriminal status offenses like running 
away or violating curfew. It would do this by closing a loophole in the 
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
  This vital legislation would also encourage States to take steps to 
eliminate the use of dangerous practices such as choking youth or 
restraining them to fixed objects for the purpose of coercion, 
punishment or the convenience of staff. These steps would include 
collecting data on the use of these dangerous practices in prisons, 
providing training to staff on effective behavior management and 
creating an independent monitoring system to oversee conditions across 
the country at juvenile facilities.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Juvenile Justice Improvement Act would 
reward States through incentive grants that are implementing ideas that 
are research and evidence based. Such reforms would include making 
juvenile justice facilities safer based on this research, improving 
public safety in the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents based on 
research, and better addressing the mental health needs of juvenile 
justice inmates based on research.
  Mr. Speaker, these changes to the juvenile justice system are 
critical to ensure that all of our youth become law-abiding, 
contributing members of society. There is not always political utility 
in government to stand up for youthful offenders, Mr. Speaker. It is 
not an easy thing for Members of this House or State legislatures to 
stand up and fight for.
  But we need to fight for these kids under the age of 18 who may have 
made a mistake, maybe a big mistake, to try to give them a second 
chance or at the very least to try to make sure that when they are in 
prison, when they are locked up behind bars that they are safe from the 
ravages that can be associated with incarceration. If we can do those 
things, we are a better Congress and we are a better society.
  With that, I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring H.R. 1873.

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