Conn.’s juvenile justice debate intensifies
HARTFORD — Advocates for increased social services and diversion programming for juvenile offenders on Wednesday vastly outnumbered supporters of tougher penalties for crimes such as stealing cars at a time when such thefts have increased sharply, compared to earlier periods.
While dozens supported a bill aimed at investing millions of dollars in the expansion of the community-based diversion systems, only a handful spoke in favor of a proposal pushed by Republican lawmakers for those under-18 to submit to mandatory fingerprinting; require those at least 15 years of age to be charged as adults for certain crimes; and develop individual reentry plans.
“If the goal is to punish them, it gets five gold stars. If the goal is to return children to their families for them to be your neighbors, wouldn’t you want them to receive the effective care they need?” said Christina Quaranta, executive director of the Connecticut Justice Alliance, during a morning news conference in the Legislative Office Building. “Treating children as adults is bad policy. It does nothing to help young people, nor improve public policy. Mass incarceration, surveillance and over-policing will not solve any of the issue Connecticut is seeing in terms of violence.”
“For far too long the judicial system has focused on incarcerating juveniles for offenses instead of making more options for them,” said state Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London, a police officer who supports the proposal to expand social-service programming. “We watch people say they want to help youth, but we take too long to help them . We must change the system . We have a system that does not do enough diversion for our kids.”
Michael Lawlor, a nationally recognized expert on the criminal justice system who teaches at the University of New Haven, stressed that there are two things to look at when it comes to the creation of criminal justice policy in the General Assembly. “Is it to reduce crime and fix problems, or is it just to add more punishment?” asked Lawlor, a former state lawmaker who currently serves on the New Haven Board of Police Commissioners.
“Sounds like everybody is in agreement about how we have to spend a lot more money dealing with juveniles, except some people want to spend it running prisons,” Lawlor said, adding that while adults cost the state about $70,000 a year to incarcerate, it costs hundreds of thousands a year per juvenile. “If your goal is just punishment for the sake of punishment, by all means start building and operating and paying for prisons.”
He described the two bills in the Judiciary Committee as “rival” pieces of legislation.