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Dear Editor,
With all the financial problems we have at all levels of government these days, it constantly perplexes me how we miss the boat on youth intervention. A report just released by the Anne E. Casey Foundation is further proof that we need more youth intervention services and not less.
The Foundation conducted research over the past four decades on how the practice of locking up Juvenile Offenders, which costs states an average of $88,000 per youth, does not work. They reported that within three years of release, roughly 75% of youth are rearrested and convicted of a new offense.
The research also clearly shows that locking kids up does not enhance public safety. States which lowered juvenile confinement rates the most from 1997 to 2007 saw a greater decline in juvenile violent crime arrests than states which increased incarceration rates or reduced them more slowly.
Nationwide states are continuing to spend the bulk of their juvenile justice budgets – $5 billion in 2008 – to confine and house young offenders in incarceration facilities. This continues despite evidence showing that alternative in-home or community-based programs deliver equal or better results for a fraction of the cost.
We work with youth in Watonwan County Youth Development located in Butterfield, St. James, and Madelia and know there is a better option. In a 2007 a landmark Social Return on Investment Report conducted in Minnesota, it was demonstrated that for every dollar that is spent on youth intervention in Minnesota, taxpayers receive a $4.89 return. In addition, it costs about $2000 for community-based programs to intervene with youth versus $88,000 to lock them up.
These programs are changing the lives of kids. Data collected from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety shows community-based youth intervention programs keeping youth from re-offending 80% of the time and the kids involved in these programs showing improvements in grades, attendance, and/or school behavior over 50% of the time.
With such clear evidence, our choice is pretty simple. We can continue to waste money on outdated beliefs about how to handle kids when they make bad choices, or we can make the smarter and more fiscally sound choice of supporting community based youth intervention programs. Compared to incarceration, youth intervention programs can intervene and work with these kids in a more successful and cost effective manner.
Watonwan County Youth Development
Dear Editor,
With all the financial problems we have at all levels of government these days, it constantly perplexes me how we miss the boat on youth intervention. A report just released by the Anne E. Casey Foundation is further proof that we need more youth intervention services and not less.
The Foundation conducted research over the past four decades on how the practice of locking up Juvenile Offenders, which costs states an average of $88,000 per youth, does not work. They reported that within three years of release, roughly 75% of youth are rearrested and convicted of a new offense.
The research also clearly shows that locking kids up does not enhance public safety. States which lowered juvenile confinement rates the most from 1997 to 2007 saw a greater decline in juvenile violent crime arrests than states which increased incarceration rates or reduced them more slowly.
Nationwide states are continuing to spend the bulk of their juvenile justice budgets – $5 billion in 2008 – to confine and house young offenders in incarceration facilities. This continues despite evidence showing that alternative in-home or community-based programs deliver equal or better results for a fraction of the cost.
We work with youth in Watonwan County Youth Development located in Butterfield, St. James, and Madelia and know there is a better option. In a 2007 a landmark Social Return on Investment Report conducted in Minnesota, it was demonstrated that for every dollar that is spent on youth intervention in Minnesota, taxpayers receive a $4.89 return. In addition, it costs about $2000 for community-based programs to intervene with youth versus $88,000 to lock them up.
These programs are changing the lives of kids. Data collected from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety shows community-based youth intervention programs keeping youth from re-offending 80% of the time and the kids involved in these programs showing improvements in grades, attendance, and/or school behavior over 50% of the time.
With such clear evidence, our choice is pretty simple. We can continue to waste money on outdated beliefs about how to handle kids when they make bad choices, or we can make the smarter and more fiscally sound choice of supporting community based youth intervention programs. Compared to incarceration, youth intervention programs can intervene and work with these kids in a more successful and cost effective manner.
Watonwan County Youth Development
