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Community leaders had a lot of ground to cover Feb. 23 as they illuminated both problems and solutions related to juvenile justice and youth diversion.
Leaders in law enforcement, along with community stakeholders met on Montgomery County Community College’s campus for the Juvenile Justice and Youth Diversion Conference. The conference was hosted by the Montgomery County Office of the Public Defender and the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania.
“This was started a while ago as a partnership between the League of Pennsylvania Women Voters and the Public Defenders Office of Montgomery County to bring these issues to light,” Dean Beer, chief public defender in Montgomery County, explained in his opening statements to attendees. “I want you to sit here today and make sure you remember that everything we’re talking about is about youth and children in Montgomery County. There’s a face, there’s a name and there’s a life behind every one of these statistics.”
The five-hour conference covered a wide range of topics and included several panel discussions as well as presentations from law enforcement and youth advocates. Panels discussed subjects including childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences and how they affect a child’s chances of ending up in the juvenile justice system.
“Our work here at Montgomery County is trauma informed. We are working throughout our entire health and human services department, our courthouse, our correctional facility to make sure that everyone in our county who touches a constituent does that from a place of trauma informed approach,” said Valerie Arkoosh, chairwoman of the Montgomery County Commissioners.
“We learn more and more about the impacts of adverse childhood experiences and what that means for the likelihood of a young child graduating from high school, being able to successfully hold a job, the likelihood of becoming justice involved, the impact on their physical health. These are real things,” said Arkoosh.
Additionally, panels also discussed the school-toprison pipeline, which refers to the disproportionate number of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds who become incarcerated because of school and local policy. Panelists included a wide variety of community stakeholders including local educators, individuals with first-hand experience in the juvenile system as well as multiple youth advocates, mental health experts and attorneys.
But it wasn’t just the source of the problems that were discussed during the conference. A large part of the day focused on building solutions to these issues as a community.
“Since 2000, almost 10,000 kids have gone through the youth aid panels and the success rate is between 90 and 98 percent depending upon the year. That’s kids that are going through the system and not coming out with a record, not coming out with something that’s going to affect them for the rest of their lives and I hope they’re moving down the rehabilitative phase, which is what we’re striving to do,” said Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele.
Panels later in the day discussed the progress and expansion of youth aid panels as well as the expansion of youth and teen court. The day finished with a discussion on overcoming barriers to school and community re-entry.
“It’s looking at the factors of prevention and what we are doing to prevent. It’s looking at rehabilitation, which is a focus of this juvenile system. We have to rehabilitate people and then deter it ... It’s great to see a room of this many people that care,” said Steele.