Do Floridians fear their children so much that we must lock them away when they misbehave? Our state government thinks so. Since the 1990s, Florida has been one of the most aggressive states in the nation when it comes to incarcerating juvenile offenders. The state confines something like 50,000 juveniles over the course of a year in 26 secure detention centers.
Moreover, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice's treatment of troubled youngsters has at times bordered on scandalous. Two years ago, there were two separate grand jury investigations of state juvenile-justice facilities. An examination by the Orlando Sentinel last year turned up in excess of 600 cases of child abuse or neglect at state facilities over the course of a decade.
In response to all of that bad publicity, the department did some housecleaning, firing several employees and placing others on leave of absence. Officials say they have also been trying to reduce the number of incarcerated juveniles, although such efforts must surely be hampered by budget cuts to programs that offer alternatives to incarceration.
Now comes a study, by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, indicating that Florida's juvenile incarceration rate is about 14 percent above the national average, that black youngsters are being locked up in greatly disproportionate numbers to whites and that many state detention centers are overcrowded.
Moreover, the study estimates that Florida taxpayers could save about $25 million a year if the state made an attempt to put nonviolent juvenile offenders in home confinement or community-based supervision programs.
"Due to the lack of funding for alternatives to secure detention, it appears that Florida is placing youth in secure detention . . . that do not need such restrictive measures," Barry Krisbert, president of the council, told reporters recently.
Incarceration is the most expensive, and perhaps least effective, means of punishing troubled youngsters who are not deemed a threat to themselves or others. It's likely that lawmakers over the previous decade overreacted to perceived threats of "juvenile super-predators" and placed too much reliance on secure detention while investing too little in nonpunitive counseling, treatment, community service and restitution programs.
That "lock-em-up" strategy is both costly and counterproductive. Juvenile-detention facilities are more likely to function as prep schools for adult prisons than rehabilitation centers.
"It's difficult, if not impossible, for [the state] to fund an appropriate mix of supervision and treatment services when the Florida Legislature has removed funding for alternatives to secure detention," said Cassandra Jenkins, director of the Juvenile Justice for Children's Campaign, told the Panama City News Herald this month. "Judges, law enforcement, state attorneys, public defenders must have the options to ensure that the right child is sent to the right place and setting at the right time."
Florida already has one of the largest and fastest-growing adult prison systems in America. Lawmakers would better serve Florida's children, and save taxpayer dollars, by scaling back the state's burgeoning juvenile detention "feeder system."
