UT study: Girls are jailed longer
Researcher looking at juvenile justice system wants to know why.
When Erin Espinosa was a probation offifficer in Texas, she often found herself between a rock and a hard place when she had to decide whether to keep a girl detained after committing a crime or return her on probation to a troubled home.
“I had a girl sitting in front of me, and I either could send her home to a bad situation — where she would probably experience another trauma — or I could escalate her charge so she could stay locked up where she would be safe,” said Espinosa, now a University of Texas researcher. “But really, is locking kids up a solution to protecting them?”
It’s a question worth debating, Espinosa said, especially now that she has found that
girls on average serve longer sentences than boys in the Texas juvenile justice system. Her study, published last week in the latest issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior, looked at 5,019 juveniles across three urban counties in Texas over a two-year period. The counties, which Espinosa declined to name out of privacy concerns, incarcerate about 50 percent of the juvenile detainees in Texas, she said.
At the Travis County Juvenile Detention Center though, gen-
eral counsel Chris Hubner said that during 2013 and 2014, girls stayed an average of 10 days and boys stayed an average of 13.5 days. Travis County detains about three times as many boys as girls, Hubner said, which experts said was common for the state and nationwide.
The girls in Espinosa’s study, meanwhile, did stay longer than boys, but she said it’s also important to note that other research shows that girls charged with crimes have been found to have had nearly twice as many traumatic experiences as accused boys. She wants to know why.
Maybe authorities want to keep them away from these traumas, Espinosa said. Or maybe, as these girls struggle to cope with their abuse or other trauma, they lash out against authorities and their sentences are extended.
“It still needs to be evaluated and researched,” she said.
On average, the girls she studied stayed in jail at least twice as long as boys. Girls in the criminal justice system were also about seven times more likely to be put in detention facilities rather than placed on probation.
That’s significant when many of these children and teens are being held for minor charges, such as running away and curfew violations, as well as for probation violations for those same crimes, Espinosa said. In fact, when Espinosa looked at those specific crimes, she found that girls were released from jail at a much slower pace than boys.
“What we’re talking about here is that if girls get locked up for crimes — that would not be crimes if they were adults — they’re staying locked up for longer periods of time,” Espinosa said. “That’s a pretty significant policy issue, especially when you realize those are noncriminal acts.”
This year the Texas Legislature passed a law, which took effect this month, that makes it no longer a crime to skip school. Truancy used to be one of the minor charges that would lead to incarcerating Texas girls. But the new law could help keep girls from spending more time in jail, Espinosa said.
The biggest takeaway from this study, Espinosa and other local experts said, is that girls may be spending more time in jail when what they really need is treatment for trauma.
“I think temporary foster homes, shelter homes, are better than locking youth up,” said Lauren Rose, who leads the juvenile justice arm of the Austin-based advocacy group Texans Care for Children. “If (girls) do need placement for treatment, such as mental health treatment to focus on that trauma, residential treatment centers that are not secure lockups are more appropriate. What we shouldn’t be doing is locking up victims.”
According to the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, state data from 2013 — the most recent year available — show that 3,323 cases were referred to the Travis County Juvenile Probation Department, and of those, about half, or 1,679, were referrals with past traumatic experience noted in the cases.
Travis County Juvenile Detention Center officials say they recognize that when children and teens commit crimes it can often be symptomatic of other problems.
“We’ve tried to develop a trauma-informed infrastructure,” said Erin Foley, director of treatment and counseling.
Espinosa’s study reinforces that idea, citing past studies that found the juvenile justice system can harm adolescent development, particularly for those with mental health needs.
“The big takeaway is that trauma,” said Rose. “We as a state and the systems that serve youth need to be working to identify and address those traumas before it leads to youth acting out in the first place.”