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“JUVENILE JUSTICE IMPROVEMENTS ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5135-H5136 on May 5, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
JUVENILE JUSTICE IMPROVEMENTS ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation that I recently introduced, along with several cosponsors, the Juvenile Justice Improvement Act.
Mr. Speaker, every day in America, 90,000 youth are incarcerated in our juvenile correctional facilities. Seventy percent of these youth are held for noncriminal acts like running away or violating curfew. Instead of working with these youth and these families to identify the root of their problem and help them find alternatives to their negative behavior, our policy in too many places around this country is to simply lock them up. Even more shocking, 7,500 of our Nation's young people sit in adult jails on any given day, even though study after study has proven that that practice of putting youth in adult facilities only increases the likelihood of recidivism and puts them at risk amongst that sometimes very dangerous adult population.
Sadly, these are not the only consequences of putting juveniles in the adult system. Keeping children safe in the adult juvenile justice system is extremely difficult. All too often, physical and sexual assault become commonplace. According to the Department of Justice's statistics division, 21 percent and 13 percent of all substantiated victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence in jails in 2005 and 2006 respectively were youth under the age of 18. That number is disturbingly high when you take into account that juveniles account for only 1 percent of all inmates. Thirteen percent of all sexual violence in our prisons is against these young people. They represent 1 percent of the total population. Moreover, and not surprisingly, youth have the highest rate of suicide in our jails. And as we know too well in Connecticut, placing juveniles with adults only exacerbates that problem.
However, I'm hopeful that with this legislation, H.R. 1873, the Juvenile Justice Improvement Act, we can start to reverse these dangerous trends.
Mr. Speaker, by keeping youth out of the adult criminal justice system and by using rehabilitative programs and services that are proven to try to help stop that cycle of crime, youth involved in these systems can emerge as proactive, positive and productive members of our community and of our workforce.
Specifically, this bill would protect youth prosecuted as adults from being held in adult jails or lockups while awaiting trial except in very limited circumstances. In these limited circumstances, youth prosecuted as adults must be sight and sound separated from adults in that facility to help protect their safety. Fortunately, some States already allow youth who have been convicted as adults to serve their sentence in juvenile correctional facilities. H.R. 1873 would remove a provision in current law that penalizes these States for choosing to house youth convicted as adults in more appropriate settings while not endangering other youth in the facility.
The Juvenile Justice Improvement Act would also work to keep youth out of locked facilities for noncriminal status offenses like running away or violating curfew. It would do this by closing a loophole in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
This vital legislation would also encourage States to take steps to eliminate the use of dangerous practices such as choking youth or restraining them to fixed objects for the purpose of coercion, punishment or the convenience of staff. These steps would include collecting data on the use of these dangerous practices in prisons, providing training to staff on effective behavior management and creating an independent monitoring system to oversee conditions across the country at juvenile facilities.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Juvenile Justice Improvement Act would reward States through incentive grants that are implementing ideas that are research and evidence based. Such reforms would include making juvenile justice facilities safer based on this research, improving public safety in the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents based on research, and better addressing the mental health needs of juvenile justice inmates based on research.
Mr. Speaker, these changes to the juvenile justice system are critical to ensure that all of our youth become law-abiding, contributing members of society. There is not always political utility in government to stand up for youthful offenders, Mr. Speaker. It is not an easy thing for Members of this House or State legislatures to stand up and fight for.
But we need to fight for these kids under the age of 18 who may have made a mistake, maybe a big mistake, to try to give them a second chance or at the very least to try to make sure that when they are in prison, when they are locked up behind bars that they are safe from the ravages that can be associated with incarceration. If we can do those things, we are a better Congress and we are a better society.
With that, I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring H.R. 1873.
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