MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Gov. Bob Riley signed a law Monday that will send many troubled teens to community programs instead of locking them up in detention centers where they often learn bad habits that get them into worse trouble.
The law stops juvenile judges from sending children who have committed non-criminal offenses to the Department of Youth Services. Last year 77 percent of DYS admissions were low-risk juveniles with nonviolent offenses like running away and being truant from school, according to the Alabama Youth Justice Coalition.
“We’re incarcerating children who have never committed a crime,” House Speaker Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, said during the bill-signing ceremony at the Capitol.
“Think of all the training this provides for those children who are out there in the system,” he said. “We don’t need that kind of training for our young citizens.”
The law also consolidates the state’s juvenile laws — which before now were a confusing jumble — by putting them into an organized code.
Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, who has worked on the bill for the last four years, said it also ensures compliance with all federal regulations for government funding for abused and other at-risk children.
“It had to be done,” said Cobb, who became a district judge in 1981. “This is the most important piece of legislation that has passed during my professional career impacting the lives of children.”
Only a handful of counties currently have the community programs in place for judges to use as an alternative to DYS. Under the new law, counties have 18 months to develop the programs, after which judges will be prohibited from locking up non-criminal offenders.
The change is expected to save the state millions each year by moving kids from expensive institutional beds into nonresidential treatment programs that are usually cheaper.
A percentage of the money that would have been spent to institutionalize the teens will instead go toward their treatment in the community-based programs.
A child’s average DYS stay in 2007 was 144 days, with the state paying a daily average of $134 per child.
Morgan County District Court Judge David Breland said he’s cut the number of children he sends to DYS in half due to a new System of Services center that’s been developed in his county.
“This is not a program, it’s a philosophy. It’s a different way of treating juveniles and it begins with the philosophy that we think we can rehabilitate children,” Breland said.
Riley praised Breland’s Decatur program, saying it should serve as a model for others that will be formed in every Alabama county.
Cobb said judicial officials and juvenile advocates will be getting together in the fall to discuss different strategies for the programs, but there are already talks going on about low-cost things that can be done immediately.
“Boy, I’m telling you, this is extremely important,” she said. “We’re going to look back and see a safer Alabama.
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