Healthy progress

Our youth custody rate is less than half the national average, due in part to Bernalillo County's emphasis on alternatives to jail.

Photo by Assbach/Flickr

ALBUQUERQUE -- Bad news once again came to New Mexico last week.

The state slipped from 47th to 48th in the nation in overall child welfare, according to the annual Kids Count Data Book, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

And in what has become a familiar refrain, it ranked in the bottom 10 of 80 percent of the indicators. It worsened significantly in child death rates, kept its high teen pregnancy rates and although its high school drop-out rate improved the Land of Enchantment still ranked 47th in the nation.

But there was a significant bright spot: a decrease in the number of kids in juvenile custody. In fact, the number of kids in custody has dropped dramatically, from 2,872 in custody in 2000 to 1,516 in 2007.

As it turns out, New Mexico’s youth custody rate is much lower than the national rate. For every 100,000 youth between the ages of 10-15, 47 were in custody in New Mexico compared to the national rate of 125, according to the report.

The low rate of kids in custody statewide has much to do with a juvenile detention model developed by Bernalillo County through participation in Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), said Lisa Adams-Shafer of New Mexico Voices for Children.

The JDAI is a national program begun in 1992 with several goals: reduce the use of "secure detention" for juveniles; minimize re-arrest and "failure to appear" in court instances; ensure appropriate conditions of confinement exist; reduce racial and ethnic disparities; and redirect public resources toward alternatives to detention. Participating governments have access to grant support for training, planning and coordination, as well as technical support, resource materials and opportunities to learn from peer to peer sharing of information.

According to the JDAI website, over 100 jurisdictions in 22 states have replicated the approach to juvenile detention, and there are four "model sites," one of which is Bernalillo County. And much of the JDAI strategies have been implemented statewide.

Good news wasn't always part of the New Mexico's program.

Back in the 1990s, Bernalillo County couldn't keep up with the demand for beds in the juvenile detention system. The population kept growing and it didn't matter how many more units they built, Doug Mitchell, JDAI coordinator, told the Independent. Bernalillo County found that "you can’t build your way out of overcrowding," Mitchell said. "If you build it they’ll fill it. We had 120-130 kids in an 80-bed facility at any given time by the late 1990s."

In the face of a $2 million outlay for a new facility, and a projected $750,000 per year to operate it, Bernalillo County began to look more seriously at how they could reduce the number of young people cycling through the center.

Mitchell said finding alternatives to actually holding young people at the center was the key. And, he said, it's been undertaken through a collaborative process beginning with supportive county commissioners, and including local judges, probation officers, public defenders and the district attorney.

To cut down on its youth population in detention, Bernalillo County closed some detention units and reassigned staff to alternative programs. There are three primary alternatives to detention: the "community custody" program, a "youth reporting center," and an out-patient mental health facility. The idea is that many young people aren't really a threat to public safety, but instead have behavioural issues that make them, if anything, a threat to themselves. So the goal is to help them become healthy and functioning members of society.

In the "community custody" program, young people aren't kept at the detention center, but are instead closely monitored while back in the community. Each case is individually designed. Sometimes it's a matter of reporting once a day to a probation officer; with others it's the use of electronic monitoring; and in the most difficult cases a global positioning system bracelet is used so that officers know exactly where the child is at all times.

The county also runs a "youth reporting center," which is referred to as the YRC. Young people report to the YRC each day for hands-on supervision if they aren't in school or working. The center is a portable building, like a classroom, with space for up to 25 kids. Mitchell says it's one approach toward pushing young people in the right direction: "We want them to work and go to school, so we don’t put obstacles in their way, but if they’re sitting around the house doing nothing, they go to the YRC. That propels them to go to school or work. We have positive programming at the center, but it does make them want to change."

In addition to these programs, the county operates an out-patient mental health center due to their observation that a large number of kids coming to them suffer from mental health problems. It serves both the youth in trouble and their families.

Mitchell said the success of the initiative has much to do with what he called a subtle shift in philosophy by the courts. Whereas before there might have been an emphasis on how to keep young people in custody, now it's centered around what needs to happen to get them back into the community, in recognition that detention centers "aren’t healthy places for kids to be." Local judges have been really great, he said. He also described success as a matter of changing processes and becoming more efficient.

"We have exorbitant periods of time involved in moving kids through the system," he said. "How effective would your punishment of your kids be if you said I’ll get back to you in 6-8 months? We've worked hard to make the process move as quickly as possible. Its an ongoing effort and we're not where we’d like to be yet."

Success is defined by the JDAI in very specific ways. Violation of rules in the community custody program isn't considered a failure if the young person is brought back into the program. There are two instances in which a lack of success is determined: if the youth commits another crime or if they don't show up in court.

Showing up in court is one of the measures of how well the initiative is working. The "Failure to Appear" rate has dropped from 831 in 1999 to 480 in April of 2005. Mitchell says that the emphasis on finding out underlying issues through the use of hard data and facts, or the root of the problem, is the way to improve these indicators. For instance, young people might not show up in court because they can't read the notices sent them due to illiteracy or because they don't read English.

Ultimately, Bernalillo County has reduced its number of young people in detention by almost 50 percent. And for that reason, policy makers and practitioners from throughout the nation visit Mitchell in his role as JDAI coordinator, to learn how to make their own systems better.

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