Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Innovations in Juvenile Justice
Juvenile Justice, like most of the privatization of the American prison system, costs more than it's worth. The Justice Center of States Rights explains, “In Connecticut, it costs about $14,000 a year to educate a student: it costs $270,000 a year to house a child in custody,” stated Senator Murphy. “In a time of tight budgets, it makes absolutely no sense to continue to house as many kids as we do in prisons when it costs about 10 percent of that amount to keep the kids in school and in communities." However, there are some states that are using funds more in more innovative ways. RECLAIM Ohio is one of them. This is a funding initiative that encourages the placement of children in community based programs rather than the Department of Youth Services. Programs and initiatives such as these are creating more cost-efficient but more importantly, more productive programs for youth.
https://csgjusticecenter.org/youth/posts/a-capitol-hill-briefing-on-states-innovations-in-juvenile-justice/
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Wow! That statistic is staggering...and you would think that alone would encourage a harder look at the education system to find a better way to keep at-risk students engaged at school. I wonder how many states have privatized juvenile jails/prisons and are, therefore, has the incentive to provide children for incarceration? Removing truancy and other ticky-tac offenses from being jail-able offenses has to be a good place to start...
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