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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
| http://www.cjcj.org/index.php |
| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 54 Dore Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
Juvenile delinquency has reached the lowest level since 1980 says a new report by CJCJ.
The information in the report also indicated that juvenile incarceration has also decreased. In 1980, 170 juveniles were incarcerated for every 100,000 inhabitants (well, they tried) in California while that level fell to 91 for every 100,000 in 2004.
In these years, the arrest rates also fell from 556 per 100,000 to 348.
The study was compiled by CJCJ researchers from information from the CDCR and DOJ of California.
Although the study could indicate that there has been progress in the fight against juvenile delinquency, says Dan Macallair, the ED at CJCJ and one of the authors of the report, the data shows that the institutional system in California is incapable of resolving the problem.
And, continues Macallair, the simultaneous reduction in juvenile crime and incarceration in youth contradicts the popular political beliefs that have influenced sentencing policy for 25 years in California.
The policies behind sentencing in California for the past three decades has been based on beliefs that the growth in prison population will produce a decrease in offending, mentions CJCJ, a nonpartisan and nonprofi organization who provides policy analysis, program development and technical assistance in the field of criminal justice.
"This argument is often cited as the basis for the decline in crime among adults in California, since overall crime rates fell during the 1990s as adult incarceration levels continue to reach all time highs," points out the report.
"For more than two decades, the crime policy in California has been based in the belief that the more people we put in jail, the less crime will be on the street. This study doesn't find evidence to support that argument. In fact, at the same time that the juvenile crime and incarcerations rates fell to historically low levels, there was an unprecedented increase of 500% in the incarceration of adults that did not produce a reduction in the commission of crime," explained Macallair.
The study concludes that the report discredits the "theory of incapacitation" and demonstrates the urgent need for legislators to consider new alternatives in response to crime and sentencing.
The study also states that placing juveniles in youth institutions exposes them to inhumane and illegal treatment, a problem that has not been resolved despite the orders in a binding consent decree.
Among the important points made in the report, also co-authored by Mike Males a senior researcher at CJCJ and professor at UCSC and Megan Corcoran, also of CJCJ are: the rate of adult incarceration has increased 500% since 1980, from 137 per 100,000 to 689 this year; over the same period, adult felony rates increased 11%; the actual levels of juvenile offending are the lowest since 1960, at 65 per 100,000.
Assemblyman Mark Leno, the chair of the Committee on Public Safety, discussed the results of the report: "This information confirms what we already know about our youth. The public safety would be better served if we reform our sentencing and parole system, and offering rehabilitative programs to help inmates achieve a successful reunification with their families."
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