justice system." The committee will receive at least 1% of the funds for the Act, which it could use to award grants and contracts to carry out its functions; and will conduct seminars, workshops, and training programs around the country to assist state advisory groups. * The state advisory groups are also strengthened by requiring their involvement in policy formulation and the implementation of the Act in their states. At least 10% of the formula grant funds going to a state will go to the state advisory group; and it, too, could award grants and contracts. Similarly, at least one-third of the members must be under 22. * The match provision is waived for private, non-profit organizations. Bayh said the formula grant program is improved by eliminating the "burdensome recordskeeping associated with in-kind match for non-profit groups." * Among the advanced techniques which states may fund will be youth advocacy programs aimed at improving services for and protecting the rights of youth. * Dependent or neglected children will be included under the provision that status offenders may not be placed in juvenile detention or correctional facilities. The wording that such children "must" be placed, instead, in shelter facilities will be changed to read "may." States would still have two years in which to meet this requirement. * A state failing to meet this deinstitutionalization requirement within two years would have to show it was in "substantial compliance" to avoid becoming ineligible for future funds. Substantial compliance would mean 75% deinstitutionalization had been achieved, and the state would have three years to meet the requirement. * Special Emphasis school programs will be more closely coordinated with HEW's Office of Education. In addition, new categories for special emphasis will include youth advocacy, due process, and programs to encourage the development of neighborhood courts. "Through the encouragement of arbitration, mediation, conciliation by the use of paralegals, ombudspersons, advocates, community participants, and others, while assisting victims, we can encourage the development of more rational and economical responses to minor delinquent behavior," Bayh said. * Authorized for the Act is $150 million for FY 78, $175 million for FY 79, $200 million for FY 80, $225 million for FY 81, and $250 million for FY 82. The authorization for FY 77 is $150 million, though only $75 million was actually appropriated in the face of intense opposition from the Ford Administration. STATEMENT OF LENORE GITTIS MITTELMAN, THE CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND OF THE WASHINGTON RESEARCH PROJECT, INC. I thank you for giving the Children's Defense Fund of the Washington Research Project the opportunity to present testimony on proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. CDF is a national, nonprofit, public interest child advocacy organization created in 1973 to gather evidence about, and address systematically, the conditions and needs of American children. We have issued a number of reports on specific problems faced by large numbers of children in this country, and will issue several more in 1977. We seek to correct problems uncovered by our research through federal and state administrative policy changes and monitoring, litigation, public information and support to parents and local community groups representing children's interests. Our monitoring of federal programs designed to provide services for children in the areas of health, education, child welfare, child development and family support have naturally lead us to our interest in the juvenile justice system and those children caught up in it. The Juvenile Justice Division of the Children's Defense Fund, formerly in New York City under the direction of the Honorable Justine Wise Polier, conducted a study of children in jails as well as a more broadly focused study of non-delinquent children, including status offenders, who are in placement out of their homes. It is clear to us that often children subject to juvenile court jurisdiction are the very same children who were deprived, and continue to be deprived, of those essential developmental, educational and support services that have been CDF's traditional concern. Too often for these very same youngsters there are additional sets of problems caused by failures and inadequacies within the juvenile justice system. Thus the Children's Defense Fund approaches the Juvenile Justice Act with the understanding that a federal delinquency program cannot solve all the problems caused by the failures of the other systems that impact on children. However, we do believe that there must be a vigorous federal delinquency program that responds to the very real problems imposed upon children by the clear inadequacies in the juvenile justice system. We appreciate the past efforts of both the House and Senate oversight committees on important issues affecting children caught up in the juvenile justice system and are grateful to have this opportunity to appear before you and offer our comments on a number of proposed amendments. Status offenders (§§ 223(a) (12) & 223(c)) 1. Requirement for Deinstitutionalization within two years We are concerned that both the Administration bill, H.R. 6111, and Senator Bayh's bill, S1021, propose changes that seemingly undernfine the Acts mandate that States deinstitutionalize status offenders within two years of submission of State plans. The initial decision to incorporate the two year requirement in the statute was based upon a clear body of evidence that institutionalization of status offenders in remotely placed, large warehousing institutions, bereft of services, was totally destructive to the children and, indeed, provided them with excellent schooling in crime. Conditions in these institutions created settings in which the truant learned well from the mugger and the runaway learned equally as well from the rapist. Both children and society were irrevocably damaged. This evidence has not changed, and the requirement for deinstitutionalization, based upon the evidence, should not change. Nevertheless both bills change the requirement for full compliance within two years by providing that "substantial compliance" is also acceptable if a State has made an unequivocal commitment to full compliance within a "reasonable time". Presently the law sets a clear standard. It requires deinstitutionalization of status offenders within two years, and a State is in compliance only if it conforms to that standard. If a State does not deinstitutionalize within two years, it is in violation of the law. However, under the proposed changes the act would essentially provide that a State is in compliance with the law even if it is only in substantial compliance. The full compliance standard becomes meaningless because it allows a State to be in non-compliance yet still be in conformance with the law. If a State is presently not in full compliance, the agency administering the act, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, has the power to negotiate with the State to bring it into full compliance. OJJDP always has the discretion to be reasonable in negotiations and indeed must be to retain its credibility with the States. However, the requirement for full compliance gives OJJDP the tool it needs in negotiating with the States to work out compliance mechanisms. Therefore we oppose allowing a State either 3 years above the first 2 years or a reasonable time after those first two years for deinstitutionalization of status offenders. Deinstitutionalization will never happen if the requirement is so weakened as to allow States either 5 years or an undefined period in which to accomplish it. Indeed, we believe that new legislation should strengthen the commitment to deinstitutionalize. We fully support Senator Bayh's proposal to make a State ineligible for its maintenance of effort funds under the Safe Streets Act if the State is not in compliance with deinstitutionalization requirements. This gives LEAA a badly needed tool for negotiating with the States to bring them into compliance. The amount of funds available under the JJDPA has not yet been large enough to be effective. 2. Shelter Facilities (§223 (a) (12)) -This section provides that status offenders, both those charged and those who have committed offenses, cannot be placed in juvenile detention or correctional facilities but ". must be placed in shelter facilities." We are troubled by the use of the term "shelter facilities" which is not defined any place in the Act. Neither the Administration nor Senator Bayh has proposed any changes in the use of the term. Used alone, without further elaboration, the term "shelter facilities" has many different meanings. It is used to describe facilities of different sizes in both urban and rural areas. It is used to refer to facilities with different levels of security and facilities used for different groups of children, i.e., dependent or neglected children and status offenders. Further, it applies to facilities for temporary placement prior to adjudication as well as to facilities used for both temporary and permanent placement subsequent to adjudication. Frequently there are no requirements concerning the extent and quality of services that must be provided to children placed in shelter facilities. For the above reasons, we do not believe the term "shelter facilities" should be retained in the Act. Further, we would like to propose that any substitute language describing alternative facilities where status offenders must be placed embody the following requirements: Any alternative placement should be in the least restrictive alternative appropriate to a child's needs and within reasonable proximity to the child's family and home community. The facility should be required to provide appropriate services, including education, health, vocational, social and psychological guidance and other rehabilitative services. It appears that Senator Bayh and the Administration both attempt to enlarge placement options under this section by proposing that "... must be placed in shelter facilities" be changed to ".. may be placed in shelter facilities." In fact, we believe that such a change increases the potential for the placement of status offenders in inappropriate facilities and defeats one of the original purposes of the Act which is to clearly limit the types of facilities in which status offenders can be placed. We believe that a better solution to the problems of increasing alternatives for status offenders is to redefine, as follows, the alternative facilities in which status offenders can be placed under the Act: §223(a) "... such plan must (12) provide within two years after submission of the plan that juveniles who are charged with or who have committed offenses that would not be criminal if committed by an adult, shall not be placed in juvenile detention or correctional facilities (, but must be placed in shelter facilities). Such juveniles must be placed in facilities that are the least restrictive alternatives appropriate to their needs. These facilities must be in reasonable proximity to the family and home communities of the juveniles taking into account any special needs of the juveniles, and shall provide the services described in section 103(1);* Children in Adult Jails (§ 223 (a) (13) In January of the year CDF released its study on Children in Adult Jails.† I will not repeat many of our findings since most of you have received copies of the study. However, I wish to recall for you that the jailing of children has been condemned for nearly a century as a cruel and unnecessary practice. It is often prohibited by State laws yet it persists in every region of the country. Every day across this country thousands of children are subjected to the harsh reality of jail, too often to their everlasting damage. It is a tragedy for any child to be held in jail. It is also a travesty because the overwhelming majority of children in adult jails are not even detained for violent crimes and cannot be considered a threat to themselves nor to their communities. In our study we found that only 11.7% of jailed children were charged with serious offenses against persons. The rest-88.3%-were charged with property or minor offenses. Most alarmingly, 17.9% of jailed children had committed status offenses. That is, truants and runaways were held in jails, under abysmal conditions, easy prey for hardened adult criminals. An additional 4.3% of the jailed children had committed no offense at all. Section 223(a) (13) of the JJDPA restricts use of jails for juveniles only by providing that children have no "regular contact" with adult offenders. Our study has shown that "this prohibition cannot protect children from physical or sexual abuse any more than state laws with similar provisions have protected children in the past." We have recommended and we continue to recommend that the JJDPA should be amended to require State plans to include provisions for ending the incarceration of children in jails within 12 months. In addition we recommend that the federal government should set a date after which no federal law enforcement aid will be granted to any state that continues to hold children of juvenile court age in any correctional facility, including jails or lockups. Further, we recommend that § 223(a) (13) be amended by deleting the word "regular" so that all contact between children and adult offenders in correctional institutions is completely prohibited. We think there is little disagreement that children need protection from incarcerated adults. This is one way to provide them with more protection than exists under present federal requirements. *Deleted material in parentheses, new material in italic. † See p. 133. Maintenance of Effort (§ 261(b)) The JJDPA requires that LEAA devote 19.5% of its 1972 Safe Streets funds to juvenile justice. However, there is no mechanism that contains information nor reveals that this is happening. We propose that the Act be amended to require LEAA to establish a monitoring system to track compliance with this requirement. Match Requirement (§ 222(d)) The statute presently gives the LEAA Administrator discretion to require cash or in-kind matching funds. Senator Bayh's amendments retain that discretion. However, the Administration's amendments delete the possibility of in-kind match and only permit cash match. We strongly oppose the Administration's proposal. Removing the possibility of in-kind match effectively destroys the ability of many private organizations with funding problems to apply for grants. We know that organizations, even some of the larger private nonprofits, have funding problems under present economic conditions. Further, the proposed changes handicap small agencies and organizations which are developing innovative programs and cannot secure money from financially troubled municipalities and counties. In short, the deletion of the possibility of the use of in-kind match hampers the private sector in developing and implementing the kinds of programs envisaged by the Act. State Advisory Councils-State Planning Agencies (SPA'8) There have been problems in a number of States in that SPA's have not been giving Advisory Councils sufficient opportunity to "advise and consult" in the formation of State plans. Too often SPA's have submitted State plans to Advisory Councils directly before submitting them to Washington. This is in direct contravention of the purpose of the Act in creating Staff Advisory Councils. Advisory Councils are to provide citizen participation in the planning process. We ask you to consider imposing a reasonable time frame upon the process, or, as has been recommended by other organizations, statutorily requiring submission of Advisory Council comments on State plans along with submission of the plan. We wish to add to this last recommendation a further condition that the SPA's be required to submit in writing its reasons for not accepting specific Advisory Council proposals. Again, we appreciate this opportunity to present our concerns to you. We believe the JJDPA has enormous potential in aiding both States and private organizations to address the problems of juvenile delinquency and its prevention. We hope to see that potential realized. |