Teen alternatives to jail good for all

It’s not every day that a state legislature working to trim the budget could be making life much better for those on whom we traditionally have spent a lot of money.

But that seems to be the case with an Illinois law that will go into effect Jan. 1 requiring the courts to consider whether treatment within a youthful offender’s community is a better option than sending him or her to a youth prison.

We’ve long decried the state of the juvenile justice system, which spends an inordinate amount of money holding teenage transgressors, provides inadequate protection and does little more than prep them for an adulthood behind bars.

A story by staff writer James Fuller this week addressed the Kane County court system’s concerns about the looming change.

Beginning Jan. 1, courts will have to determine, before incarcerating young offenders, whether they have had access to counseling, family therapy, a diagnosis of learning disabilities, attempts at behavioral changes through their school district and help for any contributing medical problems.

The concern among Kane County court folks is where the money will come from to pay for this. George W. Timberlake, chairman of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, sees things differently.

“(The law) does not mandate provision of services that are not present now, and it does not require schools to do new planning,” he writes in response. “Far from costing more money, the legislation contains language designed to help communities access federal funds for treatment services for youth in the justice system.”

Many judges already take community-based solutions into consideration before putting someone in youth prison, Timberlake said. All the new law does is require others to do the same.

It’s worked elsewhere, and we’re confident it could work here.

In Florida, for instance, petty offenders are put in family-focused, community-based treatment, and that has saved the state more than $41 million in four years, according to a recent Annie E. Casey Foundation study.

Kane County officials are scrambling to form committees to consider the impact of this legislation. It’s understandable that they and their counterparts elsewhere are skeptical about the change. They have seen their fair share of unfunded mandates from Springfield, and we suspect that the process won’t be as seamless as Timberlake suggests. But we ask that everyone take a deep breath and consider the long-term benefit of keeping kids out of jails. Just looking at the numbers; it costs taxpayers in Illinois more than $80,000 a year to keep a kid locked up.

“This is important to all of us,” Timberlake says, “as youth who are kept at home with comprehensive services are less likely to repeat offend.”