In April 2014, when Desha County Sheriff Jim Snyder read a newspaper article about AACF’s report “Why Detention is Not Always the Answer”, he called to let us know this was something he knew about first hand. As a small town sheriff he’s seen young children being transported to juvenile detention centers in handcuffs; young children and their parents in tears. It was something he hated, and he wanted this practice to stop.

This session, AACF is proposing a Youth Services Reinvestment Act that would redistribute funds currently used to incarcerate youth who do not pose a serious risk to public safety and use those savings to provide proven effective alternative community based programs. DYS would create a Youth Justice Board that would:

• Submit a plan to reduce over a two year period the use of secure confinement for youth who do not present a serious risk to public safety as measured by a validated risk assessment instrument.
• Determine measureable objectives for developing and maintaining proven effective alternatives to secure confinement in communities statewide, as well as strategies to achieve those objectives throughout all parts of the system.
• Assist DYS in determining the method for calculating savings realized from reduced state commitments, and in educating the public about the plan developed to reduce reliance on secure confinement.

Some other things we could do to reduce incarceration of youthful offenders:

• Expand statewide the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative currently underway in Benton, Washington, and Madison Counties of Arkansas.
• Expand access to community based alternatives that prevent the need to place non-violent youth in lock-ups.
• Prohibit the placement of status offenders in detention for violations of a Valid Court Order.
• Reduce the number of children sent to court for minor violations of school disciplinary policies.

We will keep you up-to-date on how these measures move forward.