Report touts youth justice changes
County project to fund community groups in an ongoing effort to deter incarcerations
Harris County may be a model for other places seeking to change the youth justice system by investing resources into the community, according to a new report from Columbia University.
The county is in the final stages of launching a project that will invest $4 million in community groups that serve children and families in an effort to steer young people away from the juvenile justice system.
The Columbia Justice Lab released a report last week that documents the yearslong process to launch the fund — the first of its kind in Texas — and issues recommendations for leaders doing similar work across the country.
“I do imagine that as more and more places take a more community investment-focused approach, that something like this could be a useful model to look to,” said Vidhya Ananthakrishnan, co-author of the report and co-director of youth justice initiatives at the Justice Lab.
The Justice Lab, a university research center focused on justice policy, became involved in the project several years ago when County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s administration asked the group to help the county reimagine its juvenile incarceration system, Ananthakrishnan said.
The university group provided support throughout the process and documented the work as community members and government agencies came together to hammer out a new model for juvenile safety.
“Over time, it became clear it was a really interesting story,” Ananthakrishnan said.
This initiative should show that community safety starts with investing in neighborhoods and supporting young people with opportunities, pos
itive activities and community connection, she said.
“We'll see some of the benefits of that over time as young people who have that kind of support move through into adulthood,” she said. “We do it all the time in upper- and middle-class white communities where young people do not typically get put into the justice system for mistakes . ... We want to see that everywhere.”
Many communities with high rates of incarceration have experienced decades of discrimination and disinvestment in education, housing and employment, according to the report, and these circumstances sometimes lead young people into the criminal justice system.
The county's reinvestment fund aims to put dollars back into these neighborhoods to keep kids from getting caught in that cycle.
“The reinvestment fund is part of a groundbreaking vision for youth justice — a vision that is not owned by institutions,” said Assata Richards of the Redefining Youth Justice Coalition, according to the report. “Instead of maintaining the punitive status quo, this fund will help to directly invest in the communities that are home to many Black and Latino youth and families that have been neglected for far too long.”
It has taken longer than expected to launch the reinvestment fund, according to the report, as community members and government officials have worked to build trusting relationships and navigate the procurement process.
The Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously voted to create the Youth Justice Community Reinvestment Fund in February 2021.
The fund includes $2 million in unspent dollars from the juvenile probation department and $2 million from the county general fund.
In April, the Commissioners Court selected Change Happens, a Third Ward nonprofit, as the intermediary group that will operate and manage the fund.
The funding has not yet been distributed but soon will be awarded to four to seven small grassroots nonprofits that work with youth.
The project stems from sevfunds eral years of work by county officials from Hidalgo's office, the juvenile probation and justice administration departments, and community members from the Redefining Youth Justice Coalition and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, according to the report.
Other states, including Colorado, have designed similar to redirect resources from the incarceration system into community support systems, the report said.
The number of kids involved in the youth justice system has dropped significantly in recent years in Harris County, with fewer young people in detention and more of them in diversion programs, according to information included in the report.
The county experienced a 50 percent drop in youth referrals to the probation department and a 31 percent reduction in youth detained between 2017 and 2021, according to the report.
Racial disparities remain in the system, however, with Black youth making up more than half of the detention population, according to the report.
The report can be a resource for leaders from other jurisdictions who are interested in community-based safety, Ananthakrishnan said. It provides detailed information about the process, including the challenges that stem from partnerships between government agencies and community members.
While the multimillion-dollar investment is a good start, the report said, the county will need to increase funding in order to create lasting change.
“The fund is a definitive step forward, but by no means is it a silver bullet that will cure all the challenges that remain to truly shift the overall youth justice paradigm,” the report said.