Wednesday, Chief Supreme Court Justice Carol W. Hunstein delivered the State of the Judiciary address. Throughout the address, I just kept thinking, “I couldn’t have said it better myself!” That said, here follows that portion of the speech urging change in the juvenile justice system. Please read, heed and enjoy! (To learn how Voices and our partners are urging change in the juvenile justice system, visit the JUSTGeorgia coalition’s website.)
Governor Deal urged the Special Council to limit its focus to changes that affect the adult prison population. I agree. We must take this one step at a time. But today, I would like to plant a seed for your future consideration. In the last year, I have heard from many of our state’s juvenile judges, who have the best interests of our young people and their families at heart. With state cuts in mental health services, child welfare services, group homes and alternatives for children who do not need to be behind bars, juvenile judges are too often faced with sending young people to locked facilities to get some kind of treatment, or sending them home to get nothing at all. So today I offer you a postscript: The same reforms we are recommending to you for adults must begin with children.
Perhaps you have heard the parable about the group of people who were standing at a river bank when they watched an infant floating by and drowning in the river. One person promptly dove in and rescued the child. But then another baby came floating by. And then another, and another! Frantic, everyone jumped in to try to save the babies. But they noticed one person was walking away. Accusingly, they shouted, “Where are you going?” He answered: “I’m going upstream to stop whoever is throwing babies into the river.”
In Georgia, we are throwing children into youth prisons. They are technically known as Youth Development Campuses, but many YDC’s look, feel and sound just like adult prisons. Some of our children are serious, violent, repeat offenders, and we must protect our citizens from them. But many are behind bars because juvenile judges have nowhere else to send them; because no one intervened before it was too late.
According to the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, during the last three years, nearly two thirds of the more than 10,000 youths locked behind bars have some kind of substance abuse problem; more than one third have been diagnosed with mental health conditions. As with adults, we have learned that our get-tough tactics have failed to scare juvenile offenders straight.
A recent study by The Annie E. Casey Foundation found evidence that our reliance on incarceration for young people provides no benefit to public safety, does not reduce their future offending, wastes taxpayer dollars and perhaps worst of all, exposes children to high levels of violence and abuse. In other words, our youth prisons are a pipeline to adult prison. Consider this: Within three years of juveniles’ release from youth prison, up to 72 percent are convicted of a new offense, depending on the state.
Children who drop out of school, get involved in drugs, develop mental health problems, are unruly, disrespectful, and out of control without ever getting any kind of intervention are strong candidates for becoming adult criminals. We must face the reality that for many of these children, Georgia’s youth prisons are mere incubators for adult crime.
Tasha Hamilton was well on her way down that path to adult prison. Tasha was 8 years old when her mother abandoned the family, leaving her behind along with her baby sisters. Although their father worked, they had little money and at times they slept in a car. Tasha grew up angry and defiant. By 11 years old, she was smoking marijuana. By 12, she was hanging out with an older crowd and drinking. By 13, she was hooked on methamphetamine.
Tasha bounced in and out of Georgia’s YDCs and boot camps — spending 90 days here, another few months there — often for minor infractions. By the time she was 16, Tasha had been in trouble so many times that she was committed to the State. And this time, they sent her away for nearly a year.
Tasha describes the YDC as a “miserable” place full of “miserable people wanting to do harm.” Tasha says youth prison “doesn’t bring out the good in anybody.” In her own words, she says: “You take away a little bit bad with you. You come out knowing worse people than when you went in, and you build relationships with them.”
But something happened to Tasha that made all the difference. She had a probation officer, Jennifer King, who genuinely cared and refused to give up on her. Jennifer worked in the Douglas County Juvenile Court under Jenny McDade, Director of Juvenile Programs. Together, they made sure Tasha got the help she needed. Tasha got her G.E.D., she got drug treatment and ultimately she got a job. Without Jennifer, she says, it would have been easy for her to graduate into adult prison. She sadly wonders how many are in adult prison today who never had a Jennifer in their lives — someone who said to them when they were teenagers: You can do it, when they had no hope that they could.
With the help of the Douglas County Juvenile Court system, under the able leadership of Judge Peggy Walker, Tasha was accepted into West Central Technical College. Today, she works fulltime in insurance, taking care of her two daughters — as a tax payer, not a tax burden. Today, Tasha has that hope in her life she once lacked. And today, it’s still important to Tasha that she continues to make her probation officer proud.
