Indiana juvenile court judges lobby for screening for young offenders

Lawmakers are considering a proposal to force court officials and child welfare advocates to work together to screen juveniles for abuse, neglect or mental illness after their arrests.

Advocates for the measure include Henry County Circuit Court Judge  Mary Willis, who says a “tough on crime” approach is failing the state's most vulnerable citizens.

“The kid who steals a candy bar and a Gatorade from the corner store is too often treated just as a thief,” Willis said. “And only later do we find out that he committed the crime because there’s no food in the house because his parents are running a meth lab.”

Willis is president of the Indiana Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, which has long pushed for changes in how young offenders are treated.

Willis and others on the council worry that the state relies too much on the criminal justice system to deal with troubled youth, when many would be better served by social services.

The council has worked with Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Evansville, and Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, to craft legislation aimed at “crossover youth" - those funneled into the criminal justice system as perpetrators who’d be better served by the child welfare system if treated as victims.

Their legislation requires screening of juveniles who are arrested to determine if they’ve been abused, neglected or endangered. A team including a prosecutor, public defender and child welfare worker must then recommend to a judge how the case should be handled.

“It’s not rocket science,” said Allen County Judge Allen Pratt.

Driving the legislation are concerns about the rising costs of locking up juveniles. Indiana spends more than $100,000 a year for every juvenile it incarcerates, or about $238 a day.

Pratt and Willis said the current system too often fails to detect links between childhood maltreatment and criminal behavior.

They point to research by the Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice that finds child abuse or neglect increases a person’s likelihood of arrest as a juvenile by 59 percent, and it increases the chances of being arrested for a violent crime by 30 percent.

Odds get worse once children are arrested, Pratt said. Studies found abused and neglected children have higher rates of recidivism and spend more time behind bars.

Another study of 2,500 people sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed as juveniles found almost half were physically abused as children.

Head, who is carrying McNamara’s bill in the Senate, said the current system is rife with bureaucratic silos that too often keep court officials and child welfare agents from working together. Head is former prosecutor who has seen the problem first hand.

“We need to open doors between those silos,” he said. “A kid who comes into the (court) system because he was arrested shouldn’t be excluded from getting the help he needs."

A new process won't keep juveniles from being charged and jailed. But it will force courts to take a deeper look into what may be behind the criminal act.

“We know that incarcerating kids too often turns them into career criminals,” Head said. “That’s not good for the kid, and it’s not good for our communities.”