The Purpose Of SD’s Juvenile Justice System
A column by Gov. Dennis Daugaard:
It has been three years since we reformed South Dakota’s juvenile justice system. When the legislation was passed, South Dakota had the second highest juvenile incarceration rate in the country. It was nearly three times the national average. At the same time, our juvenile violent crime arrest rate was approximately one-third of the national average. We were locking up primarily non-violent juvenile offenders.
Since this law has been in effect, we are seeing fewer juveniles committed, fewer juveniles reoffending, and success among those who are sent to functional family therapy. Since Fiscal Year 2014, new commitments to the Department of Corrections have declined 56 percent and the number of recommitments has declined by two-thirds.
Additionally, functional family therapy, which offers treatment for the entire family to address juvenile issues, is available in every single community in South Dakota. To date, 346 families have successfully completed this therapy and 88 percent of these families have reported a positive change as a result.
These reforms still support institutionalization of children who pose a risk of harm to others. Our system has always allowed for that, and the juvenile reforms did not change that. A juvenile who commits a violent crime can be committed to the Department of Corrections, and a judge can also commit a child who is found to pose a serious risk of violence.
Reserving commitments to cases of violence is in line with the national trend. Juvenile commitments to state-run facilities have been falling in almost every state in the nation over the past 18 years. Nationwide, placements fell from 40,678 in 1997 to 13,970 in 2013. In South Dakota they fell from 315 to 102, even before the 2015 passage of juvenile justice reforms.
The statutory purpose of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation, and we must never lose that focus. I spent 20 years working at Children’s Home Society, which operates institutions for children who have suffered abuse and neglect. Often these children have behavioral problems. At Children’s Home, our priority was always to do whatever we could to return children to their families, or if that was not possible, to a foster family or adoptive family.
I know that juvenile offenders can be difficult, but we need to remain focused on what is best for them. Locking up children because they are difficult to deal with is not acceptable. Putting a child in an institution, away from the community, is incredibly disruptive to the life of a child.
Beyond violent cases, we must continue to build our capacity to treat children in their communities – near their homes, families and schools – whenever possible. For most children, this offers the greatest chance of true rehabilitation.
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This still needs work. It may look good in regards to numbers of less juveniles incarcerated but the burden increasingly falls on the victims with little accountability or consequences for the offender or parents who know how to game the system. Restitution can be extremely difficult. Parole officers, most likely social workers and mental health professionals are overloaded with cases and hands tied to show there are consequences for their actions and to help guide them on a course correction.
Ask the states’ attorneys, ask the judges (other than Gilbertson), ask the probation officers, ask the defense attorneys, juvenile justice in South Dakota has accomplished the primary goal of keeping costs down, but is an unworkable disaster of injustice to victims, families, and the juvenile offender.