Governor Dannel Malloy’s “Second Chance Society” is based on a core American value that people should be allowed opportunity to recover from mistakes once they address the factors leading to their behavior and emerge as better persons who meet their responsibilities to family and community.
Nowhere is that vision more evident than in Connecticut’s juvenile justice system, which is built around the belief that youth who get in trouble deserve and require help to address the traumatic experiences and needs that led to their behaviors. In Connecticut, more than 10,000 children are subject to a Juvenile Court delinquency proceeding each year, and 97 percent of these are served by the Judicial Branch with some form of community-based assistance. The other 3 percent — who generally have several unsuccessful turns at these community services — get committed to the Department of Children and Families as delinquents to receive a more intensive level of treatment in a private residential setting or a secure setting. Those youth served in the state-run secure settings are a relatively small number who present with the most complex needs and highest risk.
[For more of this story, written by Joette Katz, go to http://www.nhregister.com/opin...outh-a-second-chance]
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