Campaign for Youth Justice: An Interview with Liz Ryan

The Campaign for Youth Justice is working across the country for justice for youth, taking on the issue of youth being treated as adults by the criminal justice system. Their director, Liz Ryan, took some time to talk with Justice Matters’ editor Kathleen Pequeño about the problems and the progress on this difficult issue.

Justice Matters (JM): Tell us about the priorities of the Campaign for Youth Justice.

Liz Ryan (LR): We’re dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under 18 in the adult criminal justice system. We have four priorities:

One, we raise awareness. People haven’t looked at the problems of youth in the criminal justice system.

Two, we want to see reductions in the number of youth in the adult system. We work with campaigns that are working to produce direct results.

Three, we work to reduce the harm caused to youth and children in the adult system. For us that means reducing sentences, supporting second look legislation -- “second look” means youth serving long sentences get their sentences reviewed at some point in their incarceration -- and eliminating “life without parole” for youth.

And four, we’re promoting more developmentally appropriate approaches to serving youth, and promoting alternatives to locking up youth in the adult system.

JM: How do you define youth? What should people know about the difference between youth and adults who are in conflict with the law?

LR: We define youth as under 18. But the science shows that young people’s brains are not fully developed until their mid-20’s. Let’s think about it… when do car insurance rates go down? Car insurance companies know something about young people and cars. They know that young people can make decisions, but impulse control isn’t fully developed, and peer pressure has a more profound effect. Especially in high-pressure situations, decision-making just isn’t the same as for older adults. Brain research that’s emerged in the last few years bears this out.

Some of these policies and practices that we’re seeing cause problems now were passed in response to perceived problems with youth justice system. But throwing youth into the adult system has created whole new problems. We need changes that make sense for young people… more developmentally appropriate services for youth.

JM: Can you tell me more about what those changes might look like?

LR: We’re talking about counseling and treatment in the least restrictive setting, community based alternatives to incarceration, and mental health services -- those are very effective.

Many of these youth are not a public safety risk to the community, but so much of the money is going to bricks and mortar--a bigger prison system--that there’s less available for other approaches even though they provide the outcome we want.

JM: Clearly part of the problem is the big push over the last couple decades to "get tough on crime." What's been the effect of this?

LR: The impact we’re seeing is the explosion in the number of young people in adult jails in our country -- more than 200% in the last fifteen years. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the nation’s oldest criminal justice think tank on this issue, has reported that the number of youth prosecuted in the adult system has gone up substantially. Forty states now permit or require youth to be placed in a jail pre-trial.

Let’s back up 30 years to 1974, when Congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. This is federal legislation that governs federal policy on juvenile justice. It provides money to states for basic services, and it also sets the standard for what protection children should have. Before this law passed, kids were being confined in adult jails, but the public was against that. This law reversed that trend, and set limits. For the most part youth could not be placed in adult jails: youth had to be physically-separated from adults in jails --- they had to be out of sight and out of earshot of adults. The law had limited exceptions, for rural counties, for example. And over the next couple decades, states complied.

Now fast-forward to the era of “super-predator” myth, when many states legislatures passed laws that automatically bypassed the juvenile justice system. This put decisions into the hands of state legislators and prosecutors, without protection for youth. In three states, if you’re 16, you can be automatically moved to adult system, and ten states do it at 17.

JM: Are there any states that are headed in the right direction regarding youth in the criminal justice system? If so, what types of changes have they made? What do you think the impact is or will be?

LR: I can give you a number of examples of states where the wave of punitive legislation has ended: North Carolina, Illinois, Wisconsin, Delaware. Both Delaware and Illinois are moving to reduce the number of youth in the adult criminal justice system.

The Casey Institute looked at data about youth in juvenile detention in Delaware. Breaking it out, they noticed a bunch of youth sitting in detention for a long period of time, charged as adults. In some cases, youth were waiting up to a year for a date in adult court. Then the adult court judge would review the case and send it back to the youth system based on it not being appropriate for adult court! So they would spend a year locked up even if the appropriate sanction was 90 days. That’s not fair, not humane. So the state reviewed the law and changed it, acknowledging that these youth should not be in adult court.

In Illinois, a lot of youth lock-up was for drug offenses, it had a racially disparate impact, (so it affected people based on their race). Illinois and Delaware were leaders in taking steps to reverse the trend of youth in adult court. Since then, other states have created commissions to look at the issue.

For example, North Carolina created a commission, and this commission recommended ways to substantially reduce the number of youth in the adult system. Connecticut has had a commission also. Both of their legislatures are considering legislation this session to address these issues. In Wisconsin, a legislative audit committee is investigating how kids are being treated in the adult system. Right now their state automatically sends 17-year olds to adult court to be tried as adults.

But I’m not getting frantic calls from all over the country like I’m used to hearing. It’s just the opposite. There’s been a recognition -- including the repeal of the youth death penalty -- that sending youth to the adult system causes serious problems.

JM: If you could make sure every legislator knew three things about youth in the adult criminal justice system, what would they be?

LR: Three things:

1- Research shows that sending youth to the adult criminal justice system doesn’t work. It decreases public safety.

2- There a large number of young people entering the adult court system every year for non-violent crimes.

3- The public is overwhelmingly rejecting these policies. They don’t like putting youth in jails and prisons, they want rehabilitation and treatment for young people.

It’s time for the laws to reflect the science. In many cases, the same people who voted for these laws are still in office, but they need to take into account what we’ve learned since they passed these laws.

We see that they don’t work, now we have the research that helps us understand young people’s decision-making. Anyone who works with young people knows that this is true -- their decision making is different. We know a lot more about what works to help young people, but right now, we’re investing in a system that doesn’t work at all, wasting resources and people’s lives.

We need to look at community-based models and fund those programs, fund what we know is effective. We’re getting a chance to turn people’s lives around, if we choose to fund what works.

To learn more, visit their website: www.campaignforyouthjustice.org.

This interview originally appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Justice Matters.