Today in the Phoenix New Times, Amy Silverman quoted me in her article, “From Brewer to Arpaio, No One’s Listening to the Experts About How to Save Money or Protect Civil Rights and Public Safety When It Comes to Juvenile Corrections.” I was proud to help Amy with her story. There are too many myths about juvenile justice, and responsible public policy needs to be based on facts. In this interest, I want to share the rest of what I told Amy when she interviewed me about Governor Jan Brewer’s proposal to close the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (ADJC):

• With regards to recidivism, juvenile justice professionals and researchers agree that what happens to youth when they are returned to their communities is more important than what happens to them in secure residential facilities.
• Nationwide, it is considered a best practice to keep juveniles offenders in small facilities near the communities from which they came.
• Any distance between a youth’s home community and his or her placement is considered a barrier to successful reintegration with the community.
• One of the successes of youth authorities is their ability to provide the youth in their care with much-needed education, health and mental health services. Because ADJC does not participate in any national accreditation programs, it is uncertain whether it succeeds in these areas, but the assumption can be made that it does. Without ADJC, counties would be responsible for procuring these services. Programs, like A New Leaf’s Detention Alternative Program in Mesa, already work in this space.
• Nationwide, states are recognizing that too many of their incarcerated youth are not public safety risks. States, like Illinois, are adopting new screening criteria to ensure that scarce juvenile justice resources are not wasted on youth who would be better served in the community. In 2009, only 15.21% of the youth committed to the ADJC were convicted of a felony crime against a person. The remainder either violated probation or parole or was convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony property crime.
• There is no data to suggest that the ADJC, or any other youth authority in the United States, deters crimes. In fact, data suggest that juvenile justice involvement is a predictor of future juvenile justice involvement.