Senate Bill 292, the Child Protection Safety Act commonly known as the juvenile code rewrite bill, was the subject of a public hearing at the Capitol on Aug. 9. The hearing discussed Article 6, Children in Need of Services. CHINs include children who have committed acts that would not be against the law if they were adults such as skipping school, running away from home and violating curfew.
It also includes youth who are habitually disobedient to their parents and place themselves or others in unsafe circumstances because of their behavior.
According to JUSTGeorgia, a statewide coalition advocating change to Georgia’s juvenile code, the hearing was the first public discussion about this new approach for intervening with kids who are currently considered “unruly” under Georgia law.
State Sen. Bill Hamrick, R-Carrollton, who chairs the committee, has been working with several organizations such as the Barton Child Law and Policy Center, a JUSTGeorgia partner. Hamrick introduced SB292 at the end of the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly. Article 6 creates a more holistic, service-oriented approach to status offenses.
Cynthia Langley, coordinator of the Carroll County Juvenile Wellness Court, attended Monday’s meeting.
“Research shows that once you lock a child up in detention, especially an unruly child or status offender, their likelihood of re-offending greatly increases,” she said. “You can’t deal with an unruly child successfully with just working with the child. You have to include the entire family. You can’t expect the child to change if their environment doesn’t change and you have to work with the family to accomplish that.”
While she feels county agencies do a “pretty good” job of working together to solve problems, she feels they could work more cooperatively.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Langley said. “Of course, there’s always issues when it comes to financing and funding for the service. Lots of families do not have insurance that covers counseling and Medicaid will only cover so many sessions. Some families are not quite sure how to a access those services. It’s a strong need and a strong issue. The statute that they have proposed is a good basic concept and a good theory. It’s going to be interesting to see what it looks like when they finish rewriting.”
She said the issue has to be addressed to break the cycle of status offenders becoming entrenched in the juvenile justice system.
Amanda Camp, executive director of Carroll County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), also attended the meeting. While CASA focuses on children involved with abuse or neglect cases, Camp said they have some crossover with the delinquency or status offense part of juvenile court.
“As a neutral observer in many of these hearings, I have seen that many times there are family issues rather than just issues with the young person,” she said of status offenses. “That is why I believe working with and holding accountable the entire family is imperative to making a positive change. When you lock up a child that has minor behaviors, the situation may become worse because the child is around other children who have more serious behavior issues. ... Locking a child up is not focusing on why these behaviors are occurring.”
Camp believes detention is a temporary fix and said Article 6 suggests having more of a multidisciplinary approach to dealing not only with the child, but also with the entire family.
“Instead of a child being brought directly into court in front of the judge, the family would be referred to a multidisciplinary committee and this group would work together with the family to create a family plan,” she said. “This plan would last approximately six months with the possibility to extend for another six months. If the plan is not completed or the family is not cooperative, then a petition would be filed and the case would come before the court. All of this would happen before having a child detained unless it was an emergency situation.”
Advocates said it is important to get state agencies working together to prevent a history of criminal behavior. While money is always an issue in providing services, they argue that agencies should unite to focus on what is best for the child rather than focusing on their own budget constraints.
Camp said money is always an issue when looking to provide services to children and families, and pointed out there are different pots of federal, state and county funds that are utilized in working with children and families.
“Even when it is obvious that a child needs mental health or substance abuse treatment, it becomes a challenge of who is going to pay for it,” Camp said. “Does the family have insurance coverage for this type of treatment? Is there a possibility that a treatment provider can work with the family on a sliding scale? Is this a situation where the state will need to step in and pay for services either through the Department of Juvenile Justice or Department of Family and Children Services?”
Carroll County Juvenile Court Judge Dan Camp agreed with the notion that money is a primary issue in providing services.
“If we had the funds to do it, we could help the kids a lot more,” Camp said. “Agencies are really trying, but they’re limited in resources.”
He believes better coordination among agencies will help get children back into the home before their unruly behavior turns into an aggravated assault.
Camp said they have seen an increase in status offenses in Carroll County in the last two years.
“I think it’s because of the tensions at home,” he said. “We have to address these issues.”
Stress can result because people are out of work due to the economy and might not be familiar with being around their kids all day. The stress of not having an income can also put a strain on the family.
“Status offenses typically occur when there is a true breakdown in communication in the family and constant tension,” said Camp, who makes referrals to provide in home services as an alternative to detention.
One of the programs he works with is the Morningstar Family Resource Center in Carrollton.
“A communication expert will come into the home and work with the family,” Camp said. “If issues are more mental health-related, they can do referrals or refer them to the court and I’ll try to bring in more help.”
In the last year, he has referred home services more than 300 times and said it has been successful about 85 percent of the time.
“If it doesn’t work, it’s because there are other issues involved,” he said.
He also believes that it is important to quickly provide those services to families.
“If it’s a mental health issue, we can’t wait three months to get someone in,” he said.
Bill Spears, the juvenile program manager at the Carroll County Department of Juvenile Justice, said the majority of the problems with status offenders generally start in the home. He is also a proponent of counseling the entire family as an alternative to locking a child up, though he agrees money could be an issue.
“Because of the budget situation, there is a hesitancy to move forward with a lot of initiatives and programs,” he said. “One good thing is that, in Carroll County, we have several service providers and many different agencies that provide services to the kids. We have a lot of resources.”
Although some agencies are cutting back on what they provide, there may be others that can offer their services.
“The are resources out there if you look hard enough,” Spears said.
Supervision, Spears said, is an issue.
“When you have the budget cuts, it’s a domino effect,” Spears said. “You’re not able to hire extra help so case loads tend to get a little bit higher. During this process, kids don’t get as much one-on-one attention as they would have. It’s a shame.”
While he would love to see kids get more attention, he does not believe anything can be done about it because of the sluggish economy.
“The good thing about it is that it opens the door to a lot of providers and outside people that we may not have thought to work with before,” Spears said.
He also has a problem with some of the inconsistencies in the state’s handling of status offenders and those who commit delinquent acts, a violation of a law that would be a crime if committed by an adult. While youths who commit a status offense when they are 17 years old are still treated as juveniles, youths who conduct a delinquent act at that age can be charged as an adult.
“It seems like the attitude is if they are 17, these kids are too old to help,” Spears said. “But this may be those kids last chance to get any help. There’s a lot of changes that are going to be coming in the juvenile system. It’s going to be interesting to see how it develops.”
Kirsten Widner, policy and advocacy director of the Barton Center at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, said it is important to recognize the underlying reasons behind a youth’s behavior.
“Usually kids do that because other stuff is going on,” Widner said. “They don’t tend to run away from home if everything is going really well. Truancy is either tied to problems in school or problems at home.”
She said locking children up does not address the root cause of delinquency pointed out the importance of getting all agencies involved to determine the best treatment.
“The proposed provision they talked about Monday really focuses on an interdisciplinary team that brings those different players to the table to address the kid’s needs,” Widner said.
She mentioned that providing these services would save a lot of money over time by potentially eliminating the costs associated with keeping the youth in detention if he or she continues doing down the wrong path.
“It will save money in that sense, however, service costs will go up,” she said. “We’ve moved as a society a little too far away from treating kids as kids. The way the juvenile court system developed, it was a much more rehabilitative approach.”
Widner feels that moving to a therapeutic approach is a good step back in the right direction to get juvenile offenders on a better path.
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