Juvenile Justice, like everything else in life, has become all about numbers, data, and statistics. The numbers for the state of New Jersey, and especially the county of Essex, are excellent. We have been able to reduce the numbers of juveniles on detention status without risking public safety. This was the task set for us when JDAI came to Essex County in 2004. Never complacent, eight years into our JDAI experience, we continually challenge ourselves to plug the holes as we find them and are constantly striving to improve the lives of the juveniles we work with.
Highest number of admissions in the state and one of the lowest LOS.
Proof that public safety has not been at risk:
Arrests pre-JDAI 6,208 post-JDAI (2010) 3,377 -45.6%
We’ve been able to reserve detention beds for the highest degree offender, with 63.3% of admissions for 1st or 2nd degrees arrests. Essex was known, among police departments, and the world capital of stolen cars. As car companies installed better security measures, Newark became the carjacking capital, as thefts became robberies and people became victims.
Being able to humanize the struggle behind the process, and perhaps get other municipalities, to use the expediter position, is what I am here to do. I am not the first expediter in New Jersey. We sat down with two expediters when we were attempting to determine what the scope of my new role should be. And then we threw out all the information we had collected and put together a job description that would accomplish what Essex County needed.
The compilation of the Admission and Departure Data for the detention population is part of my function. My morning is spent reading complaints and police reports, calculating degrees of offense, and updating spreadsheets. All seem to be paper-pushing activities; but while I carry out my tasks, I am also placing juveniles on my radar, informing the alternative staff which juveniles may be candidates for alternative release, and letting the court staff know how many juveniles will be appearing in court that morning.
Case processing must be front and center, in the expediter’s mind, for all juveniles on detention status. In Essex, we keep alternative detention clients on the detention status track for court. Every report released to our stakeholders, has the length of stay for every juvenile. Weekly detention reports include an accounting of juveniles who are awaiting adult court hearings, those who are in jurisdictional process, those who have been disposed and awaiting transfer, and those awaiting disposition. The detention center residents are reviewed every two weeks where we ensure that all interviews and evaluations are on track and everyone has a court date in a timely manner.
Our alternative report is issued daily, with length of stay calculated for each juvenile. We keep those who have been violated or have open bench warrants on the report in order to keep them on the radar for their eventual return before a judge. Stakeholders receive the alternative report twice a week, and similar to the detention residents, alternative clients are reviewed every two weeks.
Tweaks we have made over the years.
- court orders issued after an rst or conference call release were found to be incorrect so juveniles were scheduled for court at a slower pace.
- instituted the completion of the “Application for Counsel” at the time of the RST release or conference call (release or remand).
- no court date within a week, or a court date longer than two weeks is investigated.
- adding LOS to the alternative report.
- keeping violated juveniles on the alternative report.
The Risk Screening Tool came to Essex in 2008, after a 27 month state subcommittee battle. What should count, how should it count, who will do the work? All were questions that had to be asked and answered before piloting the instrument.
Essex RST planning committee decided to find a way to release juveniles to alternative, as close to immediately as possible. Because our detention center admissions had dropped off so drastically, and we had an excellent, well trained Admission and Record (Detention Intake) staff, the committee asked if they could be trained in alternative releases. Once we got the ok, the staff was trained and we were able to implement the rst within a few months.
We assisted the Director of the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office to train the police departments in the RST process, and sat in on the training with the Court Intake staff, who are the gatekeepers and the staff who use the RST to guide all decision making.
In 2011 we had 1317 calls:
recommended plmt: release 531(40.3%)
alternative 318 (24.1%) detain 468 (35.5%)
actual plmt: release 534 (40.5%)
alternative 210 (15.9%)
detain 573 (43.5%)
Our current work plan includes a continued effort to bring down the override rate, which at 8.7% is the second lowest in the state.
Alternative detention population has shown higher numbers than the detention center staff for a little over two years. And with great results:
83.5% successful completion
6.5% re-offense
9.9% violation for non-compliance
At one point every juvenile who was arrested while under alternative supervision, was automatically remanded. This was discontinued when the data showed that the majority were released on alternative detention the following morning. We now require the juvenile and their parent to appear before a judge the next day.