"Confining children in adult jails is not in the best interest of Alaska's children or the public.... The practice of jailing children with adults often leads to depression or suicide attempts. The risk of those children experiencing emotional, physical and sexual abuse is also increased." These words, from an Executive Proclamation released by Governor Steve Cowper in April, echo a sentiment which was incorporated into federal law more than a decade ago and which has begun to dominate discussions among juvenile justice professionals nationwide.
When Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1974, it clearly articulated its determination to eliminate the placement of juveniles in facilities which are also used for the incarceration of adult criminals. In addition to this "jail removal" mandate and a related provision calling for complete "sight and sound" separation of any juveniles who must be placed in adult facilities, Congress also mandated deinstitutionalization—removal from any form of secure or locked confinement—of juveniles charged with "status offenses" which would not be criminal if committed by an adult (e.g., drinking, truancy, running away from home).
These three provisions, enforceable through the withholding of federal funds from any state which fails to comply with regulations promulgated under authority of the JJDP Act, form the cornerstone of a national campaign to find alternatives to the jailing of juvenile offenders. Under regulations promulgated by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), each state is required to develop a system for monitoring jails, lockups, detention facilities, correctional facilities and non-secure facilities and to report the number of violations of the jail removal, separation and deinstitutionalization requirements which occur in these facilities each year.
The Division of Family and Youth Services (DFYS) is responsible for monitoring compliance with the JJDP Act in Alaska. In 1988, the Justice Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage, under contract with DFYS, designed a new monitoring system to improve compliance with the Act.
The Center implemented the new system early in 1989. Violations which occurred in 1987 and 1988 were monitored and reported to OJJDP through DFYS. These reports provide confirmation that the aggressive efforts on the part of DFYS to help communities and law enforcement agencies find alternatives to the unlawful jailing of juveniles are beginning to reduce the number of jail removal, separation and deinstitutionalization violations. However, the reports also illustrate the immense barriers which continue to impede efforts to find satisfactory alternatives, particularly in rural communities.
Alaska has shown remarkable progress in removing status offenders from secure confinement. Although large numbers of status offenders—primarily juveniles who have been drinking alcoholic beverages (an offense which is defined as a crime under Alaska law but which the federal government considers a status offense because only a "limited class" of "adults" can be charged with underage drinking)—continue to be detained in jails and juvenile detention centers, nearly all of these are released within the 24-hour "grace period" permitted in most such cases under federal law. In contrast with the nearly 500 status offenders held in secure confinement for over 24 hours in 1976, the baseline year against which violations of the deinstitutionalization requirement are measured, fewer than 50 detentions of status offenders exceeded the grace period in each of the past two years. In both 1987 and 1988, about half of the deinstitutionalization violations occurred in juvenile detention facilities operated by DFYS and the remainder were distributed among several rural jails and correctional centers for adults.
Considerable progress has also been realized in the level of compliance with the jail removal mandate. Under this requirement, juveniles accused of criminal-type offenses may not be held for more than six hours in a facility which is also used for incarceration of adult criminals; juveniles who have already been adjudicated delinquent, or who have committed only status offenses, may not be held in such facilities at all. In 1980, the baseline year for measurement of jail removal violations, more than 850 violations were recorded. In contrast, about 600 violations of this requirement were recorded in 1987 and only about 400 in 1988. In both 1987 and 1988, at least one violation of the jail removal violation was recorded at nearly all adult jails and correctional centers, and at just over one-fourth of the "lockups" (holding cells designed for brief detention) in the many small police stations and trooper posts across the state. In each of these years, however, jail removal violations were largely concentrated among a small group of facilities and among one particular type of offender. In 1987, seven rural facilities accounted for over 70 percent of all jail removal violations, and over half of these violations involved children arrested for possession or consumption of alcohol. By 1988, one of these seven facilities had closed, and some of the others had substantially reduced the frequency of juvenile detention. Nevertheless, five of these facilities accounted for over half of all jail removal violations in 1988 and, again, the majority of violations involved juveniles arrested for alcohol offenses.
Progress toward full compliance with the separation requirement ? which mandates that no juvenile may be held for any length of time in a facility which fails to provide complete "sight and sound" separation of incarcerated juveniles and adults ? has been far less substantial. There were approximately 800 violations of this requirement in 1987, only a few less than had been reported in the baseline year of 1976. By 1988, though, the number of separation violations had fallen below 600, reflecting the presence of new alternatives to detention of juveniles in adult jails in several Alaska communities. Four rural jails accounted for about half of all separation violations in both years and 40?45 percent of the violations involved juveniles who had been consuming alcohol.
DFYS has employed a variety of strategies in its efforts to reduce violations of the jail removal, separation and deinstitutionalization requirements. Prominent among these are the following:
- Nonsecure attendant care shelters have been set up as alternatives to detention in several communities. Secure shelters for juveniles are also available in some communities;
- A new juvenile detention center was opened in late 1987 in Bethel, and the Nome Youth Facility has been re-opened;
- DFYS has launched an education and training campaign to inform law enforcement officials and the public of the problems inherent in inappropriate detention and jailing of youth and the availability of effective alternatives;
- Detention policy in juvenile detention centers has been modified to prohibit admission of juveniles charged solely with possession or consumption of alcohol except when the conditions for protective custody as outlined in the state's Uniform Alcoholism and Intoxication Treatment Act are met;
- DFYS officials are working with individual detention facilities to curtail record keeping practices which artificially inflate the number of reported violations and to provide training in record keeping methods for officials at those "lockups" which do not yet maintain adequate detention records.
Despite these efforts, and despite a provision in state law which prohibits detention of any juvenile in a facility which also houses adult prisoners, "unless assigned to separate quarters so that the minor cannot communicate with or view adult prisoners convicted of, under arrest for, or charged with a crime" (AS 47.10.130), juveniles charged with delinquent offenses continue to be detained in adult facilities—and status offenders continue to be detained in both adult and juvenile facilities—when adequate alternatives are unavailable. Most of the facilities that detain juveniles in violation of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act are in rural communities where alternatives to such detention are absent and where immediate transfer of juveniles from these communities to appropriate facilities is often impossible due to unavailability of air transportation and/or inclement weather. Lack of awareness of the dangers inherent in inappropriate detention of juveniles—on the part of parents and law enforcement officials in both rural and urban areas—also contributes to the difficulty DFYS faces in its efforts to reduce the frequency of such detention.
Although the importance of the effort to remove juveniles from adult jails and to deinstitutionalize status offenders is becoming increasingly apparent to many throughout Alaska, the barriers to full compliance with the JJDP mandate remain formidable.
David Parry is an instructor and researcher with the Justice Center at UAA. He is a doctoral candidate at the State University of New York at Albany.
