By Sarah Preston
North Carolina faces one of the worst budget crises in memory, so it makes plenty of sense for Gov. Bev Perdue to seek out ways to cut costs and find efficiencies within the government. But as estimates about how many teachers the state will lose and proposed class sizes creep up, we should consider how much of this budget crisis we want to balance on the backs of North Carolina’s children. Indeed, close consideration of some of the proposals under consideration may give us cause to look for other options.
Here’s a case in point: Recently, as part of a much-publicized move to reduce the number of state departments and agencies, Gov. Perdue presented an option that could damage our children’s future – namely, merging the Department of Correction, the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety and the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (DJJDP) together to form a new “Department of Public Safety.â€
Unfortunately, the plan seems to be based more on a kind of quick and off-hand combination of organizations that “sound†similar than any kind of serious and thoughtful analysis.
Without showing any evidence that the proposal could produce cost efficiencies, the plan would merge one department with a core mission of treating, training and rehabilitating children who have made a mistake with two departments that protect public safety through sanctions and incarceration – in effect, uniting a group dedicated to rehabilitation with jailers and law-enforcement officers.
In a state where school resource officers roam the halls of nearly every school, 41 percent of juvenile offenders are referred into the juvenile justice system from schools and one in 10 children is suspended, this is the last thing we need. North Carolina already has an efficient “school-to-prison†pipeline. There is no need to seek efficiencies there.
Taking such action would jeopardize a remarkable track record at DJJDP. Since the establishment of the department in 2000, North Carolina has witnessed a dramatic decline in the juvenile-delinquency rate. In 2009, DJJDP reported the happy facts that: (a) juvenile-delinquency complaints had reached a 10-year low and (b) the number of children committed to its Youth Development Centers had fallen by two-thirds. This remarkable progress has all been achieved without full funding and with substantial budget cuts over the last several years.
In establishing DJJDP’s mission of rehabilitation, the legislature recognized that most troubled children remain in (or will return to) our communities. As such, the goal of supporting juveniles who are adjudicated delinquent so that they may become law-abiding, responsible and productive members of the community was set.
In marked contrast, the focus of the Department of Correction is punitive and provides far fewer services and training opportunities.
And not surprisingly, the evidence shows that sanctions-oriented systems only increase recidivism in juveniles. Consolidating these departments would almost undoubtedly create a punishment-oriented system for handling juvenile offenders that would increase recidivism and diminish the state’s ability to reduce the juvenile-delinquency rate.
The current system is far from perfect; but given the significant strides the Department of Juvenile Justice has made, it would be a shame to cut all this progress short and jeopardize the investment the state has made in children over the last decade. If some kind of merger is absolutely necessary, DJJDP ought to be combined with a department like the Department of Health and Human Services, where most of the focus is on treatment and providing services, not punishing children who have made a mistake.
Let’s hope that, as lawmakers return to Raleigh in January, all of Gov. Perdue’s proposals for combining agencies and departments receive a thorough vetting. While many may show themselves to be worthy ideas, her plan to merge juvenile rehabilitation with adult law enforcement and prisons will surely fall short.
Sarah Preston is the policy director of the ACLU of North Carolina.