Senators Spilka and Donato have it right, see: http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/opinion/columnists/x1498055061/Spilka-and-Donato-Change-status-quo-for-juvenile-offenders#axzz1S583OSZw
In writing legislation moving from CHINS (Children in need of services) to FACES (Families and Children in engaged in services) the model becomes seeking assistance for a whole family, not criminalizing a child for avoiding school or having meltdowns in public. Currently under “CHINS” if a child doesn’t go to school, the school’s truancy officer files a case in juvenile court that can place a child in DYS, cause parents to lose custody – but not ensure that the school (or anyone else) checks to see if the child needed special education and is avoiding school because due to social promotion, the child is in a school program where the child is told to do work they neither understand nor can do day after day and so stops going,
“One of the main goals of FACES is to keep children out of the juvenile court system because research has shown that children involved in the juvenile justice system are at a greater risk of ending up in the adult criminal system. FACES would also be a voluntary system, giving parents the option of working with the courts if they deem it necessary. In some situations, the courts are necessary but we need a system where theyare not the only option.”
If enacted, the FACES program would be paid for in part by reducing the number of court appointed attorneys, both staff and private – and even though I do those appointments, that would be fine with me. Seeing a 12 year old in court, and sometimes faced with foster care or lockup for refusing to go to school when school is torture due to never diagnosed learning diagnoses or bullying is torture for me too. The Senate has passed the FACES legislation co-sponsored and championed by Senators Spilka and Donato – I hope that the House passes this legislation as well, and the Governor signs it AND it is properly funded.
“FACES would be gradually implemented over four years and would build off of the existing Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative and the excellent work that is being done in bullying prevention. By shifting the front door from the courts to our communities, we will see savings in other areas and programs. For example,
the Committee for Public Counsel Services testified that it will save $4 million annually because fewer court-appointed attorneys will be needed to represent children. The plan for a delayed implementation will
allow these and other resources to be reallocated in order to support the programs and initiatives of FACES.”
The FACES legislation is an example of the RIGHT way to $ave money on indigent defense – sensible diversion that reduces case loads for both courts and attorneys.
Over the long term, FACES will actually save
the Commonwealth money by facilitating early, more effective intervention,
keeping these children out of the criminal justice and correction system. It
will also provide a more unified method of data collection, helping us identify
what services are and are not available.
I’d say this gets to the heart of what’s wrong with our government today, and part of the reason for why we’re so politically divided.
What Spilka and Donato lay out in this sentence:
is the antithesis of early 21st century government (at least in this part of the world).
Investment in the well-being of our collective future? Healthier children? Strengthening and supporting families? Strengthening and securing our communities? Not THIS legislature! Not THIS governor! Not THIS state! Not THIS country! All that stuff is un-American, not our modus operandi. No, no, let’s invest in the profit-making machinery that couldn’t care less about all that motherhood and apple-pie-in-the-sky nonsense. You want stronger, healthier, more disciplined kids? Sign them up with Uncle Sam.
Before I go overboard here, I should probably say THANK YOU to Spilka and Donato for sounding like genuine elected representatives. A rare breed. I hope they can apply this same logic to other critical issues.
TODAY if a child has experienced “social promotion”, cannot read, and is in a class where they are expected to do work they neither understand, nor are able to do and stop going to school – they are hauled into court, may be placed in foster care, or even in a DYS lockup with assaultive kids and kids who steal or use drugs just for avoiding daily failure. And appointed attorneys…FACES should cut the cost of court appointed attorneys by a minimum of $4 million AND requires an educational evaluation of kids who stop going to school. HINT – if school is working for a kid – the kid goes to school and there is no place that kid would rather be than with their friends and learning.