The next presidential administration should build on the momentum researchers, advocates and policymakers have created to close youth prisons, experts say.
They are hopeful a new report that lays out the case for investing in community-based alternatives to incarceration will be a valuable guidepost as the transition to a new administration begins after the election.
“Maybe having this teed up early on will make it a priority. They have a tremendous opportunity to be successful,” said Vincent Schiraldi, a co-author of the report and a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice.
The report released Friday at the Department of Justice highlights problems with incarceration for juveniles, including poor facility conditions, abuse scandals, stubborn recidivism rates and high costs.
Youth would be better served in a system that drastically limits the number of juveniles who are incarcerated, expands community- and family-based programming, and reinvests money in additional prevention and alternative strategies, the authors said.
While a small number of juveniles may need to be housed in secure confinement, those facilities should be reimagined as smaller and closer to juveniles’ homes, as well as better prepared to offer the rehabilitative programming that will put youth on a healthy path, they said.
[For more of this story, written by Sarah Barr, go to http://jjie.org/next-administr...-experts-say/334154/]
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