The Deinstitutionalization of Juvenile Status Offenders: New Myths and Old Realities

Claims are bei made for deinstitutionalization that obscure some of the lesser known, negative effects. Within the juvenile justice system, for example, many juveniles who were previously institutionalized as juvenile status offenders are being relabelled and institutionalized as jivenile delinquents. In the state system studied in this report, the total number of juveniles in institutional programs did not decrease during the period of "deinstitutionalization." Fairness and justice in the administration and execution of the law are concepts that are central to the foundations of the American legal system. While it is widely recognized that inequities in the administration of justice do exist and are perhaps inevitable, our commitment to striving toward those ideals has resulted in almost constant revision of our criminal and juvenile codes. Hardly a year passes that major new legislation does not find its way into these bodies of law for the purpose of improving conditions or providing for more equitable solutions for those persons affected by the administration of justice. 1 During the past two decades we have become increasingly aware of certain inequities in the juvenile justice system. First of all, it was acknowledged that there were large numbers of children who were not charqed with any criminal conduet beinq kept in Juvenile correctional institutions.' To make matters worse, most of the data indicated that these so-called juvenile status offenders were being detained lonqer in such correctional facilities than their more seriously delinquent peers-in some cases, twice as long. 3 The severity of handling of juvenile status offenders seemed to indicate "that society is more concerned about a juvenile's willingness to go to school, mind his parents, and refrain from experimenting with alcohol or sex than about his tendency to commit rape, robbery, or assault." 4 There is evidence, however, that the general public actually believes status offenses to be less serious than almost all other deviant behaviors. In one study, respondents ranked refusal to obey parents, truancy, and running away as 130th, 136th, and 137th in seriousness, respectively, out of 140 possible offenses. 5 Various proposals were made by concerned individuals and organizations to provide for differential handling of juvenile status offenders--handling which would recognize their status and their needs as being different from those of other juvenile offenders who were guilty of violations of the criminal law. 6 Calls for reform culminated in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. 7 In addition to providing funds for diversion and other community-based programs, this act prohibited the holding of status offenders in training schools, detention facilities, and jails. Within the State of Arkansas, Act 509 of the 71st General Assembly (Regular Session, 1977) declared: "That in cases of non-criminal acts committed by juveniles in Need of Supervision, the juvenile shall be treated not as a criminal, but as misdirected, misguided, in need of aim, encouragement, assistance, and counseling; and if such juvenile cannot be properly cared for in his own home, that he be placed in a suitable home, agency, or other facility where he may be cared for, helped, educated and equipped for useful citizenship.", 8 The Act further required that on or before August I, 1977, any juvenile charged with offenses that would not be criminal if committed by an adult "shall be released from all 'Secure Detention' facilities." 9 This Act, passed by the legislature as "emergency" legislation on March 15 and approved by the Governor three days later, gave the training schools approximately four and one-half months to find alternative placements for their status offender residents. Juvenile courts, who were accustomed to committing status offenders to the training schools, had the same short period of time to develop alternate methods for handling status offenders. The new myth created by the legislation is that juveniles who have committed no criminal act should not be maintained in secure facilities, but should be offered appropriate treatment in an open setting. The old reality is that these youth will probably continue to be incarcerated in detention facilities, training schools, and jails for some time to come. Considering the large number of juveniles maintained in these kinds of facilities (616,766 in 1973), 10 it will take more than a few simple changes in the law and a few million dollars in federal "seed" money to accomplish such a feat. The magnitude of the problem of deinstitutionalizing status offenders was awesome. The latest data available indicated that 38% of the 777 commitments in 1974 were status offenders. Twenty-five percent of the males comml-ted and seventy-seven percent of the females were status offenders." Not only would a large number of alternative placements be needed, but the overall role and function of the training schools might be expected to change dramatically due to a predicted decrease in population. If status offenders were incarcerated for up to twice as long as other juvelile offenders, then the removal of the 38% of the resident population who were status offenders should have lowered the school's population by over fifty percent. The fact that the number of status offenders committed to the State's Reception and Classification Center fell dramatically in 1977 is illustrated in Table I. TABLE I Commitments to the Reception and Classification Center, 1974-1977 Year Total Status Offender Commi tments Commitments 1974 777 295 1975 912 31