Philly DA moves to reform juvenile justice system

Philadelphia’s draconian and all too ineffective juvenile justice system has historically been prone to seek incarceration and heavy supervision of children, trapping them in a byzantine system that exposed them to danger, neglect, and pushed them toward the adult apparatus.

PCCY has monitored the Philadelphia courts for the past three decades to impress upon judges the need to consider the long-term interests of children when sentencing them.  Our goal was (and still is) to remind the court that we share a collective responsibility to protect children from harm, regardless of how much they test our patience and tolerance. 

In recent years there’s been broader and deeper recognition, in part as a result of the coalescing of many advocates for children, including PCCY, to expose the shortcomings and dysfunction of the system. Our collective efforts shined light into its dark corners, chipping away at the policies that harmed justice involved youth.

This week was a big week for system change.

On Wednesday, District Attorney Larry Krasner unveiled reforms targeting greater public safety, streamlining processes and costs, and, most importantly, better outcomes for children and their families, including more diversion programs that will allow more minors to avoid adjudication.

“These policies return our juvenile system to its true purpose: rehabilitation of youth, which turns children’s lives around and makes us all safer.” DA Larry Krasner. 

Talk of such reforms reached a large audience at the 2017 District Attorney Candidate Forum, which PCCY proudly sponsored, that focused on juvenile justice. At the time, Candidate Krasner (along with the other candidates) lamented the status quo, vowing more diversionary programs and utilizing incarceration as a last resort. This week’s announcement was the fulfillment of several campaign promises.

In addition to diversion programs, the DA will also dissuade prosecutors from seeking imprisonment of children younger than 14 or youth charged with a misdemeanor. 

Described as a “prescription for failure”, the litany of probation conditions most kids received, such as missing curfew or ditching school, was a major hurdle to recovery. While previously conditions often numbered upwards of 5 or 6, the DA announced a cap of 3 conditions, which could have the most significant impact of all the announced reforms.  

The changes do not affect youth charged with serious violent crimes, weapons offenses, or repeat offenders.

They do, however, affect the majority of justice-involved children, who have committed minor or lesser felony offenses or have been placed in institutions, 72% of whom are in placements because of a probation violation, as opposed to a repeat criminal offense.

These welcome changes follow last year’s brave testimonies by several young people who shared their horrific experiences having to live in the institutions at the direction of the court.  Krasner’s reforms set a high bar for the work of the Youth Residential Placement Task Force, which was created by City Council to reduce the city’s reliance on sending youth to institutions, decrease the use of institutions far from families, support networks and the City, and to identify ways to improve the living conditions, education, counseling, and all aspects of life in every institution where our courts send youth to live and heal. 

Likewise, Krasner’s zeal to proceed with long overdue reforms, shifts our eyes to the courts who have some reforming of their own to do. Sadly, the courts opted out of participating in the Youth Residential Task Force where the City, School District, parents, youth, and experts have been assembled to work on strategies to improve the conditions in the institutions where the courts require neglected or delinquent children to live. 

Meanwhile many of the judges continue to send children to institutions that have already been publicly flagged as harming children.  It’s about time to think about reviving Courtwatch or some other vehicle to help our courts join the growing movement to find ways to heal our children regardless of the offenses they’ve committed or the failings of their parents.  As prosecutors adjust their approach on juvenile cases, we hope judges exercise their wisdom when considering the dark legacy of the juvenile justice system as we move toward a new era of justice for children.