Juvenile justice reform is working despite crime spike

Over the past two decades, stakeholders in the Santa Clara County justice system have worked hard to fashion an approach to serving our youth that is cost effective, gives young people a chance to move past a brush with the law and enhances community safety.

This hard work is paying off: Between 2012 and 2016, the number of arrests/citations for all youth has decreased by 60 percent, a remarkable achievement. Today, young people are receiving rehabilitative services and intensive supervision in the community rather than a jail setting or distant juvenile facility.

The average daily census at Juvenile Hall is down from nearly 350 in 2012 to below 100 in 2017. We have shifted away from jailing children for their delinquent acts — a principle that we should be proud of as the science continues to support diversion programs rather than incarceration.

We need to understand why a small group of young children have been involved in some serious behavior in our community recently, particularly in San Jose. However, we have every reason to believe that the county should continue with its juvenile justice approach of serving most youth with community-based wrap-around services.

There is no reason to believe this recent activity is anything more than a temporary wave, as juvenile crime is often cyclical. There is no evidence that our evidence-based approach for the past five years has contributed to the current wave of juvenile crime.

Research has consistently shown that incarcerating youth actually leads to recidivism. Given the research, we should advocate intensive services and well-funded resources and programs rather than spend money on shipping them off to remote state-run facilities that will not help them turn their lives around.

Our focus needs to be on helping them obtain a high school diploma, job training, family counseling and substance abuse services.

Often the youth who come into contact with our juvenile justice system have unmet treatment needs, or have suffered trauma. They may be associating with older, more sophisticated young adults. Prolonged detention of these traumatized youth will only serve to exacerbate their mental health needs and lead to entrenchment in the juvenile justice system.

The safest, smartest and most cost-effective approach for the vast majority of youth is to address whatever issue brought them into the justice system through effective intervention in their local community.

Santa Clara County and other California communities have joined jurisdictions in states including New York and Texas in employing evidence-based, community-centered approaches and have seen continued good public safety outcomes. We must not revert back to an antiquated system that relied on large, expensive custodial facilities that failed to address young people’s needs and did not make our communities safer.

We have come a long way from the inhumane, uncivilized and archaic treatment our children received over 20 years ago when kids in this county were being abused in our facilities and were not given appropriate treatment or services.

With support from law enforcement, community-based organizations, probation, the courts and other juvenile justice stakeholders, our system changed because it had to.

Since there appears to be an uptick in juvenile crime, the juvenile justice stakeholders in this community intend to come together to review the relevant data, find the reasons for it and fashion solutions that both hold young people accountable and keep the community safe.

Santa Clara County has never shied away from tackling the tough issues. It is well-respected throughout the nation as a leader in juvenile justice reform. We will continue to lead and collaborate to solve this challenge and welcome community support as we invest in our schools, neighborhoods and our youth.