On Tuesday, October 1, 2024, CFCC hosted its annual symposium Keeping Youth in Community: Policies, Practices, and Programs to Promote Youth Justice at the University of Baltimore School of Law. This blog is one in a series of four posts about the CFCC’s 2024 symposium.
The third panel of the symposium was titled “Bolstering Connection to Community During the Reentry Phase.” It was moderated by Eduardo Ferrer, associate professor and policy director of the Juvenile Justice Initiative at Georgetown University Law Center. The panel included James Dold, founder and CEO of Human Rights for Kids; Lisa Garry, deputy secretary of community services at Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services; Kelly Quinn, deputy director of the Choice Program at UMBC, and finally, Heather Warnken, executive director of the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at UBalt Law.
Ferrer opened the panel by sharing data and evidence that drive his interest in leveraging community connections to prevent involvement in the youth justice system. He poignantly centered the conversation by explaining that community connections are crucial at every stage of youth justice-system involvement. Ferrer shared that youth who are impacted by the youth justice system have an incredibly high prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, known as ACEs. The high incidence of ACEs indicates that we are failing children even before they enter the system. Ferrer closed his introduction by explaining that community, not the youth justice system, is the answer. Thus, we should be investing in communities rather than the system.
Garry answered Ferrer’s first question, about how the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) does assessments of youth before re-entry starts, by discussing DJS’ model of child-centered work. In DJS’ assessments, Garry encourages youth to advocate for their needs. Garry believes when youth are given the opportunity to choose their desired placement, they are more willing and able to comply with the conditions.
Garry also acknowledges that there is a lack of opportunity for these kinds of conversations, and DJS should work on becoming more culturally competent. Nevertheless, Garry says she tries her best to center her work on empowering youth and uplifting families’ visions. She acknowledges that implicit bias is not implicit when codified in law; she works hard to acknowledge and counteract these biases.
The panel continued with Ferrer asking Dold what Human Rights for Kids’ research has found regarding the traumatic impact of confinement on youth. Dold spoke extensively about Human Rights for Kids’ state ranking system on the state’s juvenile justice system’s compliance with the standards of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Dold noted that the United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the CRC. Ultimately, after conducting a comprehensive state ranking, Maryland scored extremely poorly in complying with human rights standards for children in the juvenile justice system. Dold shared the staggering statistic that in the United States, nearly 1,100 individuals have been incarcerated since they were children, and 90 percent of them are minorities. Dold also pointed out that when kids go to adult facilities, they are likely to be held in solitary confinement, causing long-term and detrimental consequences.
Considering the human rights violations occurring in the juvenile justice system, Ferrer asked Warnken what we can do to help young people heal prior to, during, and/or after system involvement. Warnken comprehensively described the many ways that we are failing children. Warnken described how racial ZIP codes, disparities in who gets to be seen and heard as victims, lack of access to resources, missed opportunities for prevention, and the over-policing of communities as some of the many ways children’s needs at all phases of involvement are not being met. Ultimately, Warnken called out the institutional betrayal between the juvenile justice system and communities. Warnken says that to help young people heal, the juvenile justice system must instill dignity of care in their services and undo the community’s distrust of the system.
Turning to Quinn, Ferrer asked about the model and approach of UMBC’s Choice Program, which provides services and support to young people in the community. Quinn explained that The Choice Program was founded in 1987, in the wake of the myth of super-predators dominating the news. When the program began, participants were monitored 3 or 5 times a day, 7 days a week. The program found there was a need for job opportunities, and a career element was added. With that high level of surveillance, The Choice Program felt they were becoming an arm of the state and acting as human GPS monitors. If kids were not present for their check-ins, they were considered unsuccessful. Then, when the wrongful death of Freddie Gray led to protests in Baltimore, The Choice Program shifted its model from monitoring to mentorship. Mentors decreased their visits from 30 to three times per week. The Choice Program now emphasizes gestures of trust and encourages kids to make their own goals, supported by the program.
Ultimately, the panelists agreeed that relationships are at the core of re-entry. It is essential that we keep kids in their communities, so they learn to respond and overcome environmental triggers. There must be a shift in the narrative to a focus on shared humanity and treating kids like kids.