When a teen is arrested, Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said, some parents may want to let their kids stay in jail overnight to teach them a lesson, but it can be a mistake with long-reaching consequences.
“I would not leave my kid in juvenile custody or the Lake County Jail to teach them a lesson, and I’ll tell you why,” Carter said at a recent event sponsored by the Indiana Parenting Institute. “Most young gang members or thugs are made in jail. During intake, they ask you what gang you’re in, so they know where to place you. If you’re unaffiliated, gang members reach out to them and get made in jail.”
As the number of juvenile arrests decline nationally, Lake County is seeing a downward trend among kids coming through its doors while studying alternatives to incarceration.
In 2015, 968 juveniles went through the intake system at the Lake County Juvenile Justice Complex, but only 531 juveniles were detained for at least one day, according to Lake Superior Court Judge Thomas Stefaniak Jr., senior judge of the juvenile division. By comparison, 1,027 kids went through intake in 2014 and 579 were detained for at least a day.
“Statistically, how that pans out, this is the debate to look at how we find that happy medium,” Stefaniak said.
The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, or JDAI, was launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 1992 to safely lower incarceration levels for juveniles by analyzing each kid’s situation individually and providing a variety of alternatives to jail. JDAI has been implemented in almost 200 jurisdictions in 39 states and the District of Columbia.
“As we are operating under JDAI principles, we have to determine how to detain the right kid for the right reasons for the right time, all while balancing that with public safety,” Stefaniak said.
On average, about 20 to 30 offenders are housed in the juvenile detention center on a daily basis, he said.
Some examples of alternatives to jail include home detention, day and evening reporting programs, residential alternatives and foster care.
In 2014, there were 15,350 juvenile delinquency cases in Indiana, and 743 juveniles were committed to one of the four department of correction facilities. Of juveniles in correctional facilities in Indiana, 33.5 percent were committed because of a violent offense, and on average, juveniles confined for a violent offense stayed in a facility for 9.4 months.
Stefaniak said Lake County considered instituting an evening reporting program to its toolbox, but funding was hard to come by.
“We had an opportunity to watch an evening reporting program in California,” Stefaniak said. “While it seemed like a good thing, it was hard to justify the amount of money spent for the amount of kids involved.
“It’s all grant funded and to administer the grant requires an expensive amount of man hours. We were going to do evening reporting but only in Gary. My concern is that we have 18 communities and I represent all of them. I don’t oppose it, (but) if we do it, we have to do it for a fair cross section of our community.”
Stefaniak plans to have discussions with police departments across Lake County in terms of the best way they can apply JDAI principles.
“Because Lake County is so large, there is no way to effectively communicate with all of the men and women out on the street on how it works, so there is some misapprehension,” Stefaniak said.
He related an anecdote from an officer, who was displeased after “we didn’t take a 12-year-old kid who was just caught shoplifting.”
“Now, the kid shouldn’t be caught shoplifting, no question,” Stefaniak said. “But we have to consider how wise it is to have a 12-year-old mixing with 16- and 17-year-olds who have engaged in violent behavior, which is something JDAI is designed to prevent.”
A community-based committee, which included judicial staff, a prosecutor’s office, defense attorneys, police, school officials and parents, developed the criteria the tool is based on.
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“It’s a tool that allows us to determine what is important to us as a community, what we view as a danger,” Stefaniak said. “For example, in a college town someone who commits a DUI may automatically be detained or put under house arrest.” Guns and violence are weighed more heavily, he said.
Stefaniak worked in the adult criminal division up until two years ago. Now, he said, he’s able to focus more on fixing the problems that led to the juvenile committing a crime and hopefully lowering the rate of recidivism.
“It’s been a great transition because I have a lot of excellent employees,” Stefaniak said. “The frustration level that I have with daily work is a lot less because there are resources available in juvenile court to help families and correct problems earlier.
“The whole goal is to correct behavior. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don’t.”
Prevention
Carter, the prosecutor, spoke extensively on ways to prevent youth from entering the criminal justice system. He said family dynamics have a powerful impact on whether a kid gets in trouble.
“I have great friends in law enforcement who work their butts off, but the problems continue to plague us,” Carter said. “Sometimes I think we put too high of expectations on cops and too low expectations on the family (of a criminal).”
In particular, Carter argued that the decline in two-parent families deprives children of male role models.
“We have too many young men with children out of wedlock,” Carter said. “It’s said in the African-American family, 70 percent of households are single women.
“It’s difficult to raise a child out of your household. A son definitely needs his father and daughters need a male figure even more. We are so much of what we’re surrounded by.”
Getting a child involved in activities is also important to keep them out of trouble, he said.
“When you make a decision to have a child, you have to have a plan to raise that child,” Carter said. “Don’t wait for some school program to open up. Look up activities on the Internet and make sure to go to the library on a weekly basis.”
Carter said many people think locking up a criminal for a long time will deter other would-be criminals, but it doesn’t.
“I’m very satisfied you could put a police officer on every block in Lake County, and you are still going to have the same rate of crime,” Carter said.