DOCUMENT RESUME UD 033 521 ED,441 057 Bishop, Donna M.; Griset, Pamala L. AUTHOR Replicating Detention Reform: Lessons from the Florida TITLE Detention Initiative. Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform 12 Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD. INSTITUTION 1999-00-00 PUB DATE 49p.; For other "Pathways to Juvenile Detention Reform" NOTE reports, see UD 033 511-520. Annie E. Casey Foundation, 701 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, AVAILABLE FROM MD 21202. Tel: 410-547-6600; Fax: 410-547-6624; Web site: http://www.aecf.org. Reports - Descriptive (141) Guides - Non-Classroom (055) PUB TYPE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Adolescents; Delinquency; *Juvenile Justice; Local DESCRIPTORS Government; Political Influences; State Legislation; Youth Problems Adjudicated Youth; *Detention; Florida; Juvenile Crime; IDENTIFIERS *Reform Erfo::'c.s; Rciorm Strategies ABSTRACT This report describes lessons learned from the Broward Detention Initiative (BDI) in Broward County, Florida, a successful detention "The reform effort that led to attempts at replication. Chapter 1, Predecessor Program: The Broward Detention Initiative," explains key factors in BDI's success (e.g., the site was ready, problems were effectively assessed, clear goals and objectives were developed, existing and new alternatives were used, and zaeclianisms were built to reinforce reforms). "The Political Winds Shift," examines political events during the Chapter 2, (FDI), which years between the BDI and the Florida Detention Initiative included passing the 1990 Juvenile Justice Reform Act, developing a more conservative political environment, and passing the 1994 Juvenile Justice "The Replication Project: The Florida Detention Reform Act. Chapter 3, Initiative," presents issues surrounding implementation of the FDI: sites selected, goals developed, technical assistance and training provided, local partnerships forged, statutes limited options, external pressure for reform limited, goal ambiguity hindered progress, lack of FDI organization at the local level occurred, role of the Center for the Study of Youth Policy in local sites diminished, and data collection and research not prioritized. Chapter 4 "Florida Detention Initiative Outcomes," examines outcomes in three Florida locations. Chapter 5, "Lessons Learned," presents 13 lessons learned through this experience. (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. A PROJECT OF THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION TM:11:05EUTELYMIL iessons frOn the: [Florida Detention !Initiative U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS CENTER (ERIC) BEEN GRANTED BY dThis document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization W.T. Rush originating it. by Donna M. Bishop and- Minor changes have been made to _itaniczE. Casei Pamala L. Griset improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated in this INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 1 A PROJECT OF THE ANNIE E. CASEY FOUNDATION REPLICATING DETENTION lessons from the Florida Detention REFORM Initiative by Donna M. Bishop and Pamala L. Griset About the Authors: Dr. Donna M. Bishop is Associate Professor in the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University; Dr. Pamala L. Griset is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies at the University of Central Florida. Additional free copies of this report may be ordered from: The Annie E. Casey Foundation 701 St. Paul Street Baltimore, MD 21202 410.547.6600 410.547.6624 fax www.aecf.org printed on recycled paper Y MUIR MR1lifT,111 Series Preface 4 The Predecessor Program: The Broward Detention Initiative Chapter 1 10 The Political Winds Shift Chapter 2 18 The Replication Project: The Florida Detention Initiative Chapter 3 23 Florida Detention Initiative Outcomes Chapter 4 33 Lessons Learned Chapter 5 38 Titles in the Pathways Series 46 5 4 SERIES PREFACE Many years ago, Jim Casey, a founder and long-time CEO of the United Parcel Service, observed that his least prepared and least effective employ- had spent ees were those unfortunate individuals who, for various reasons, much of their youth in institutions, or who had been passed through multiple fos- siblings to ter care placements. When his success in business enabled him and his establish a philanthropy (named in honor of their mother, Annie E. Casey), Mr. Casey focused his charitable work on improving the circumstances of disadvan- taged children, in particular by increasing their chances of being raised in stable, nurturing family settings. His insight about what kids need to become healthy, productive citizens helps to explain the Casey Foundation's historical commitment to juvenile justice reform. Over the past two decades, we have organized and funded a series of projects aimed at safely minimizing populations in juvenile cor- rectional facilities through fairer, better informed system policies and practices and the use of effective community-based alternatives. In December 1992, the Annie E. Casey Foundation launched a multi-year, multi-site project known as the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI). JDAI's purpose was straightforward: to demonstrate that jurisdictions can estab- lish more effective and efficient systems to accomplish the purposes of juvenile detention. The initiative was inspired by work that we had previously funded in Broward County, Florida, where an extremely crowded, dangerous, and costly detention operation had been radically transformed. Broward County's experience demonstrated that interagency collaboration and data-driven policies and pro- public grams could reduce the numbers of kids behind bars without sacrificing safety or court appearance rates. Our decision to invest millions of dollars and vast amounts of staff time in JDAI was not solely the result of Broward County's successful pilot endeavors, however. It was also stimulated by data that revealed a rapidly emerging national crisis in juvenile detention. From 1985 to 1995, the number of youth held in A). This increase secure detention nationwide increased by 72 percent (see Figure might be understandable if the youth FIGURE A in custody were primarily violent AVERAGE DAILY POPULATION OF JUVENILES IN U.S. PUBLIC DETENTION CENTERS, 1985-1995 offenders for whom no reasonable alternative could be found. But other 25,000 data (see Figure B) reveal that less 20,000 than one-third of the youth in secure 15,000 custody (in a one-day snapshot in 10,000 1995) were charged with violent 5,000 acts. In fact, far more kids in this one-day count were held for status 1985 1989 1987 1991 1993 1995 offenses (and related court order vio- Source: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional and Shelter Facilities, 1985-1995. lations) and failures to comply with conditions of supervision than for FIGURE B dangerous delinquent behavior. ONE-DAY COUNTS IN DETENTION FACILITIES BY OFFENSE CATEGORY, 1995 Disturbingly, the increases in the Property, drugs, public order, "other"*-37.5% numbers of juveniles held in secure Violent offenses-28.6% detention facilities were severely dis- .1 4, .4 ...:.....:..:4.4 7,041 proportionate across races. In 1985, 8.355 approximately 56 percent of youth in Status offenses and technical violations-33.9% detention on a given day were white, while 44 percent were minority *Examples of "other" include alcohol and technical violations. Source: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional youth. By 1995, those numbers were and Shelter Facilities, 1985-1995. reversed (see Figure C), a conse- FIGURE C quence of greatly increased detention JUVENILES IN PUBLIC DETENTION CENTERS BY MINORITY STATUS, 1985-1995 African-American and for rates Hispanic youth over this 10-year period.' minority 43A% minority58.4%` As juvenile detention utilization white 56.6% white 43.6% escalated nationally, crowded facili- ties became the norm rather than the 1985 1995 exception. The number of facilities Source: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional and Shelter Facilities, 1985-1995. 7 PRI13581-gf operating above their rated capacities ,rose by 642 percent, from 24 to 178, between 1985 and 1995 (see Figure D), and the percentage of youth held in over- crowded detention centers rose from 20 per- FIGURE D cent to 62 percent during the same decade (see NUMBER OF OVERCROWDED U.S. PUBLIC Figure E). In 1994, almost 320,000 juveniles DETENTION CENTERS, 1985-1995 200 entered overcrowded facilities compared to 61,000 a decade earlier. 175 Crowding is not a housekeeping problem 150 that simply requires facility administrators to 125 put extra mattresses in day rooms when it's 100 time for lights out. Years of research and court cases have concluded that overcrowding pro- 75 duces unsafe, unhealthy conditions for both 50 detainees and staff. A recently published report 25 by staff of the National Juvenile Detention Association and the Youth Law Center summa- 1985 1981 1989 1993 1995 1991 Source: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, rizes crowding's impact: Correctional and Shelter Facilities, 1985-1995. Crowding affects every aspect of institu- tional life, from the provision of basic ser- FIGURE E vices such as food and bathroom access to PERCENTAGE OF JUVENILES IN OVERCROWDED U.S. PUBLIC DETENTION CENTERS, programming, recreation, and education. 1985-1995 It stretches existing medical and mental 70 Js health resources and, at the same time, pro- 60 duces more mental health and medical JINNI 50 crises. Crowding places additional stress on Jon.. 40 the physical plant (heating, plumbing, air 30 circulation) and makes it more difficult to 20 laundry, and meal maintain cleaning, preparation. When staffing ratios fail to 0 1 keep pace with population, the incidence of 0 1985 1981 1989 1993 1995 1991 violence and suicidal behavior rises. In Source: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, crowded facilities, staff invariably resort to Correctional and Shelter Facilities, 1985-1995. increased control measures such as lock- downs and mechanical restraints.2 Crowding also puts additional financial pressure on an already expensive pub- lic service. Operating costs for public detention centers more than doubled between 1985 and 1995, from $362 million to almost $820 million (see Figure F). Some of these increased operating expenses are no FIGURE F doubt due to emergencies, overtime, and other TOTAL OPERATING EXPENDITURES IN U.S. PUBLIC DETENTION CENTERS, 1985-1995 unbudgeted costs that result from crowding. $1,000,000 JDAI was developed as an alternative to these trends, as a demonstration that jurisdictions $900,000 could control their detention destinies. The ini- $800,000 tiative had four objectives: $700,000 ® to eliminate the inappropriate or unnecessary use $600,000 of secure detention; $500,000 ® to minimize failures to appear and the incidence $400,000 of delinquent behavior; $300,000 to redirect public finances from building new IN facility capacity to responsible alternative strate- $200,000 gies; and $100,000 ® to improve conditions in secure detention facilities. 1985 1987 1989 1993 1991 1995 To accomplish these objectives, participating Source: Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional and Shelter Facilities, 1985-1995. sites pursued a set of strategies to change deten- tion policies and practices. The first strategy was collaboration, the coming together of disparate juvenile justice system stakeholders and other potential partners (like schools, community groups, the mental health system) to confer, share information, develop system-wide policies, and to pro- mote accountability. Collaboration was also essential for sites to build a consensus about the limited purposes of secure detention. Consistent with professional stan- dards and most statutes, they agreed that secure detention should be used only to ensure that alleged delinquents appear in court at the proper times and to protect the community by minimizing serious delinquent acts while their cases are being processed. IPMITE/Af Armed with a clearer sense of purpose, the sites then examined their systems' operations, using objective data to clarify problems and dilemmas, and to suggeSt solutions. They changed how admissions decisions were made (to ensure that only high-risk youth were held), how cases were processed (particularly to reduce lengths of stay in secure detention), and created new alternatives to detention programs (so that the system had more options). Each site's detention facility was carefully inspected and deficiencies were corrected so that confined youth were held in constitutionally required conditions. Efforts to reduce disproportionate minority confinement, and to handle "special" detention cases (e.g., probation violations or warrants), were also undertaken. In practice, these reforms proved far more difficult to implement than they are now to write about. We began JDAI with five sites: Cook County, IL; Milwaukee County, WI; Multnomah County, OR; New York City; and Sacramento County, CA. Just about when implementation activities were to begin, a dramatic shift occurred in the nation's juvenile justice policy environment. High-profile cases, such as the killing of several tourists in Florida, coupled with reports of signifi- cantly increased juvenile violence, spurred both media coverage and new legislation antithetical to JDAI's notion that some youth might be "inappropriately or unnec- essarily" detained. This shift in public opinion complicated matters in virtually all of the sites. Political will for the reform strategies diminished as candidates tried to prove they were tougher on juvenile crime than their opponents. Administrators became reluctant to introduce changes that might be perceived as "soft" on delinquents. Legislation was enacted that drove detention use up in several places. Still, most of the sites persevered. At the end of 1998, three of the original sitesCook, Multnomah, and Sacramento Countiesremained JDAI participants. Each had implemented a complex array of detention system strategies. Each could claim that they had fundamentally transformed their system. Their experiences, in general, and the particular strategies that they implemented to make their detention systems smarter, fairer, more efficient, and more effective, offer a unique learning laboratory for policymakers and practitioners who want to improve this critical component of