alternatives to detention

It’s time to close this nation’s youth prisons. They don’t serve their purpose: keeping our neighborhoods safe and helping young people turn their lives around. They fail to fulfill this core mission despite costing $150,000 per youth per year.

This summer has seen a lot of action around youth-centric legislation in Hawaii. In July, Gov. David Ige (D) signed a number of new laws governing the state’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

Youth prisons don’t work, yet on any given day, over 50,000 youth are in them or other out-of-home placements due to their involvement with the juvenile justice system. Overwhelming evidence shows that youth prisons are harmful, ineffective and excessively expensive.

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) already has an iron in the pay-for-success (PFS) fire in San Diego where it is working with The Children’s Initiative on a plan to provide county-wide alternatives to detention.