A Community Option for Alabama Juveniles

by Matt Kelley · 2009-10-27 15:24:00 UTC
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It was the tough-on-crime, war on drugs 1970s and 1980s. America feared a dangerous outbreak in juvenile crime, and lawmakers cracked down -- passing legislation to ensure that kids were incarcerated for breaking the law -- even if they were non-violent first-time offenders.

Alabama's prison system grew faster than the rest of country during the tough-on-crime years, but not by much. From 1977 to 2000 Alabama prisons grew by 373%, compared to 364% for the country as a whole. We were all swept up in the hysteria.

Well, things are definitely changing, in Alabama and elsewhere. Last year, Alabama legislators passed laws requiring judges to choose community sentences and other alternatives to incarceration for non-violent juvenile offenders. This means kids who make a mistake might have a chance to stay with their families, stay in school, get some special training -- the opportunities that research shows actually prevents crime later in life.

The tough-on-crime policies of the 70s, 80s and 90s were the seed that grew into an incarcerated nation. Kids who may have turned their lives around through an alternative sentence instead went to a juvenile detention facility and learned that society didn’t want them. They formed friendships with violent individuals. As Linda Tilly, the Executive Director of Voices for Alabama’s Children, wrote  in a recent column in the Montgomery Advertister, they got a chance to do some “networking that society does not need.”

Last year, Tilly’s group conducted a review of kids detained in juvenile facilities in several Alabama counties. Eighty percent of incarcerated kids in the study were there for non-violent crimes. This needs to change, and the Alabama legislature is right to act now to change it.

“Ultimately, successful community-based programs will enable our nonviolent youth to live healthy, law abiding lives while we all move forward in a stronger, safer Alabama,” Tilly wrote.

I never thought I'd say this, but Alabama is leading the way by reimagining its juvenile justice system, and other states need to take notice.

Via Reclaiming Futures

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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