Five Things to Know About the New Juvenile Justice Act - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

Five Things to Know About the New Juvenile Justice Act

Posted February 9, 2019
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Young person with braces smiles

The fed­er­al bill reau­tho­riz­ing and strength­en­ing the Juve­nile Jus­tice and Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion Act (JJD­PA) set new stan­dards for juris­dic­tions to treat youth in ways appro­pri­ate for their age, to reduce dis­crim­i­na­tion and dis­parate out­comes for youth of col­or and to pro­vide a con­tin­u­um of ser­vices, sup­port and opportunities.

Here are five changes in the new ver­sion of JJD­PA prac­ti­tion­ers should understand:

1. New stan­dards for juris­dic­tions to treat youth in age-appro­pri­ate ways

Each state must sub­mit a three-year plan to be eli­gi­ble for fed­er­al fund­ing under the law, and these plans must now demon­strate that they are guid­ed by sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge about ado­les­cent brain devel­op­ment and behav­ior.

2. Man­dates for com­mu­ni­ty-based pre­ven­tion and treat­ment ser­vices and fam­i­ly engagement

The new law incor­po­rates key ele­ments of the Youth PROMISE Act, which estab­lish­es fund­ing for local com­mu­ni­ties to build a con­tin­u­um of pre­ven­tion and inter­ven­tion pro­grams for youth who are involved — or at risk of being involved — in the jus­tice sys­tem. The local boards that devel­op the plans must include a bal­anced rep­re­sen­ta­tion of pub­lic agen­cies and youth- and fam­i­ly-serv­ing non­prof­its, plus at least one youth who has been found guilty by a judge of com­mit­ting a delin­quent act and one par­ent of a youth adju­di­cat­ed in this way.

State plans must engage fam­i­ly mem­bers in the design and deliv­ery of pre­ven­tion and treat­ment ser­vices; pro­mote evi­dence-based and trau­ma-informed pro­grams and prac­tices; reduce the num­ber of young peo­ple locked up while await­ing place­ment in res­i­den­tial treat­ment pro­grams; and pro­vide alter­na­tives to deten­tion for sta­tus offens­es (offens­es not con­sid­ered crimes if com­mit­ted by an adult, such as tru­an­cy or run­ning away).

3. Stronger core pro­tec­tions for youth of col­or, youth tried as adults and youth who com­mit sta­tus offenses

The new law strength­ens each of the JJDPA’s four core protections:

  • Racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties (RED) is the term in the new ver­sion of the law that replaces dis­pro­por­tion­ate minor­i­ty con­fine­ment (DMC).” The JJD­PA pre­vi­ous­ly required states to make efforts to reduce dis­par­i­ties with­out pro­vid­ing any specifics. The new bill requires states to use pol­i­cy, prac­tice and sys­tems-improve­ment strate­gies to reduce dis­par­i­ties by tak­ing actions such as estab­lish­ing coor­di­nat­ing bod­ies to advise states; using data to iden­ti­fy bias in deci­sion mak­ing; and cre­at­ing and imple­ment­ing a work plan with mea­sur­able objec­tives to address the needs iden­ti­fied by the data.
  • Sight and sound sep­a­ra­tion required that young peo­ple be sep­a­rat­ed from incar­cer­at­ed adults by both sight and sound when they are housed in the same facil­i­ties. The new law extends this pro­tec­tion to youth await­ing tri­al as adults, giv­ing states three years after enact­ment of the law to comply.
  • Jail removal orig­i­nal­ly pro­hib­it­ed hous­ing young peo­ple in adult facil­i­ties while they await tri­al in juve­nile cas­es, except under lim­it­ed con­di­tions. As with the sight and sound sep­a­ra­tion” cit­ed above, the new law extends this pro­tec­tion to youth await­ing tri­al as adults, giv­ing states three years after enact­ment of the law to com­ply. An excep­tion will apply for cas­es where a court finds, after a hear­ing and in writ­ing, that it is in the inter­est of jus­tice to house youth in adult jails.
  • Dein­car­cer­a­tion of sta­tus offens­es orig­i­nal­ly pro­hib­it­ed incar­cer­at­ing youth charged with sta­tus offens­es. An excep­tion to this pro­hi­bi­tion, how­ev­er, allowed youth to be incar­cer­at­ed if they vio­lat­ed a valid court order (VCO) relat­ed to the sta­tus offense. Despite advo­cates’ con­tention that the VCO excep­tion should be phased out entire­ly, Con­gress agreed on a com­pro­mise that main­tains it with tight restric­tions to lim­it its use. Youth can­not be held in deten­tion for longer than sev­en days under VCO; a court must make sev­er­al spe­cif­ic writ­ten find­ings sup­port­ing the deci­sion; and the order may not be renewed or extend­ed unless there is a new violation.

4. Addi­tion­al data-col­lec­tion requirements

The new law requires that fed­er­al Office of Juve­nile Jus­tice and Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion (OJJDP) and the states col­lect addi­tion­al data to get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of youth in the sys­tem. OJJDP must now col­lect data on eth­nic­i­ty, along with race and gen­der, for its annu­al report on youth tak­en into cus­tody. For state plans, states are now required to col­lect data on:

  • the use of restraints and isolation;
  • youth who have oth­er dis­abil­i­ties in addi­tion to learn­ing disabilities;
  • sta­tus offense charges filed and youth secure­ly con­fined based on sta­tus offenses;
  • liv­ing arrange­ments of youth return­ing from custody;
  • school-based offens­es;
  • preg­nant youth in cus­tody; and
  • child abuse and neglect reports relat­ed to youth enter­ing the juve­nile system.

5. A relat­ed bill, the FIRST STEP Act, will also affect youth

Signed on the same day, the fed­er­al FIRST STEP Act incor­po­rates the Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive® facil­i­ty stan­dards on room con­fine­ment, also called soli­tary con­fine­ment. This includes the nar­row set of cir­cum­stances in which room con­fine­ment is allowed, the require­ment that a young per­son be released as soon as he or she calms down and a max­i­mum of three hours iso­la­tion before the facil­i­ty must trans­fer the youth to anoth­er, more appro­pri­ate facil­i­ty. Although the FIRST STEP Act only applies to pris­on­ers in fed­er­al facil­i­ties, it serves as an exam­ple for states inter­est­ed in adopt­ing sim­i­lar standards.

Relat­ed Resource

Read Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform Act of 2018 Affirms Pro­tec­tions for Young Peo­ple” from Casey’s blog

Melis­sa Coretz Goe­mann, senior pol­i­cy coun­cil at the Nation­al Juve­nile Jus­tice Net­work, con­tributed infor­ma­tion and analy­sis to this blog.

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