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the independent voice for Kentucky's children

Juvenile Justice

All youth need strong connections to family, community, and school to help them move more successfully into adulthood.  Yet the juvenile justice system often further disconnects youth from these supports. Although youth crime is on the decline, punishments have become increasingly harsh in recent years. National research suggests many youth are inappropriately confined during the justice process, oftentimes with profound long-term consequences. 

Research shows that undue or inappropriate confinement, particularly for minor offenses, can disengage youth from family, school, and work and increase the likelihood that youth will re-offend.  More than any demographic factor, juvenile detention is the strongest predictor that an individual will be incarcerated as an adult.

Defining the Problem

For youth who commit offenses during adolescence, courts must balance accountability for youth while also permitting opportunities for a strong transition into adulthood.  Unfortunately, consideration of these important factors has become less of a priority in Kentucky over recent years. 

Accordingly, there are two especially troubling problems in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system on which KYA is specifically focusing its efforts:

  1. Kentucky has the second highest rate of confinement of juvenile status offenders in the nation.
  2. African American youth are overrepresented in every phase of the juvenile justice process and disproportionately sentenced to the harshest and most restrictive possible sentences.

 

Current Initiatives

Early in its history, KYA led the passage and funding of a regional juvenile detention and placement plan.  Of the organization’s four founding goals, two focused specifically on juvenile justice: “Assure that delinquent children and those with emotional problems receive effective and humane treatment” and “prevent the unnecessary jailing and detention of youth and secure adequate remedial services for these youth.” 

More recently, we have worked to begin drawing attention to the vast racial and ethnic disparities that exist in the juvenile justice system, ban the juvenile death penalty, and modify juvenile court procedures to increase the openness of the process.

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