There have been numerous cases of suicides, juveniles raping and killing others within a juvenile jail or rehabilitation center, or simply being left alone. Taking the role of the parent when the parent cannot perform and putting the job into the state's hands may be a basis for those statistics. States handle immeasurable amounts of juvenile cases and there are not enough funds available to accommodate all of them. As an example, it costs about 53,000 dollars a year to keep a delinquent in a state institution in New York. In addition to lack of funds, monitoring and inspecting these facilities are not done efficiently and uniformly on a state-wide basis.
Many kids are worse off when they leave than when they entered.
A three-step reorganizations needs to be initiated. The first step is for the federal and state governments to get tough on juvenile courts and become more involved with the growing number of troubled youth that are being ignored every day. While the proposed crime bill appropriates billions of dollars for alternative programs to get kids off the streets, it will be ineffective if the court ignores the potential youth who could benefit from these programs. Perhaps if the government would participate more actively in the juvenile system, there would not be a need for the proposed addition of ten high security prisons costing three billion dollars. If ignored, many of today's juveniles might be the first to be incarcerated in those new prisons.