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Requirements
of the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act
To
receive funding under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
(JJDP) Act, states are required to comply with four core requirements
of the Act: deinstitutionalization of status offenders, sight and sound
separation of juvenile and adult offenders, removal of juveniles from
adult jails and lockups, and reduction of minority overrepresentation
in the juvenile justice system.
Virginia
has gone beyond the federal requirements for compliance monitoring by
creating a double system of record-keeping and on-site inspection that
ensures that all facilities are visited on-site and inspected at least
annually.
In
1994, the Virginia Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP)
Advisory Committee developed a policy that limits Title II grant funding
to any locality that has demonstrated an unjustifiable pattern of compliance
violations. A special Compliance Improvement funding category is available
to these localities. To access these funds, the locality is required to
establish a corrective action plan, agree to self-reporting of all new
violations, and be subject to quarterly on-site compliance monitoring
inspections until it demonstrates that no violations have occurred for
a full calendar year.
Annual
training regarding the JJDP Act and the Code of Virginia is provided
by the Department of Criminal Justice Services to juvenile justice system
professionals such as Court Service Unit Directors, Juvenile and Family
Court Judges, Detention Home Superintendents, sheriffs, police and other
law enforcement personnel.
The
four core requirements are summarized below. Data are provided showing
Virginia’s record of compliance with the core requirements.
Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders
Juveniles
who are adjudicated for committing offenses that would not be criminal
if committed by an adult are status offenders. Neither status offenders
nor non-offenders such as abused and neglected children may be placed
in secure detention facilities or correctional facilities. Status offenders
include, but are not limited to, truants, runaways, and minors in possession
of alcohol1. Violations of this section of the JJDP Act occur
when accused status offenders are held in secure juvenile detention centers
for more than 24 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, and when adjudicated
status offenders are held for any length of time in secure detention centers
or any adult jail or municipal lockup. Abused and neglected children may
not be placed in secure detention facilities or secure shelter care, under
any circumstances.
Despite
prohibitions within the Code of Virginia, and federal regulations
addressing the deinstitutionalization of status offenders and non-offenders,
on occasion violations are recorded. As can be seen in the figure below,
they are few: in 1998, only 96 violations occurred. They generally derive
from limited access to alternative residential placements and programs.
Virginia has worked to improve the gaps in the continuum of pre- and post-dispositional
alternatives through the Virginia Juvenile Community Crime Control Act
and by establishing the deinstitutionalization of status offenders as
the priority in the awarding of new grants to jurisdictions already in
compliance.
Click
here to view Figure 1 - Non-Compliance for Deinstitutionalization of Status
Offenders (1989-1998).
Sight and Sound Separation
The
JJDP Act provides that during the temporary period that a juvenile may
be held in an adult jail or lockup, no sight or sound contact is permitted
between the juvenile and adult inmates. Virginia law prohibits the placement
of a juvenile in any secure adult facility that has not been approved
for the detention of juveniles. Sight and sound separation is a requirement
for approval. The Department of Criminal Justice Services collaborates
with the Department of Corrections’ certification team to ensure
that uniform standards of sight and sound separation are used throughout
the Commonwealth. A facility that exhibits a pattern of violations is
subject to losing its certification to hold juveniles from the Board of
Corrections. As the figure below shows, there have been few violations
over the past 10 years; in 1998, there were none.
Click
here to view Figure 2 - Non-Compliance for Sight and Sound Separation
(1989-1998).
The
Code of Virginia permits co-located facilities, that is, adult
and juvenile facilities located on the same site2. A workgroup
with representation from the Departments of Criminal Justice Services,
Juvenile Justice, and Corrections has developed compliance and regulatory
protocols related to co-located facilities. Each agency has responsibility
for different aspects of the facility certification and monitoring. Currently,
Virginia has two co-located juvenile detention facilities: Northwestern
Regional Juvenile Detention Center, located on the grounds of Frederick,
Winchester Regional Jail Complex; and Merrimac Juvenile Detention Center
located on the grounds of the Middle Peninsula Regional Jail complex in
Williamsburg. Both are in compliance with federal and state regulations
for co-location of juvenile secure detention facilities.
Removal of Juveniles from Adult Jails and Lockups
Juveniles
accused of committing a delinquent act may be held in temporary custody,
not to exceed 6 hours, at an adult jail or lockup for purposes of identification,
processing, interrogation, transfer to a juvenile facility, court appearance
or release to parents (jail removal). This federal jail removal exception
includes 6-hour time periods both immediately before and after a court
appearance, provided that the juvenile has no sight and sound contact
with incarcerated adults during this time. The 1998 Virginia legislature
revised the Virginia Code, which previously allowed only six hours combined
before and after a court hearing, to parallel the federal code. There
have been few violations of this requirement; in 1998, there were 10.
Click
here to view Figure 3 - Non-Compliance for the Removal of Juveniles from
Adult Jails and Lockups (1989-1998).
There
is one exception to Virginia's law prohibiting the placement of juveniles
in jails. Section 16.1-249.E of the Code of Virginia allows a judge
to transfer a juvenile who is 14 years or older from a secure juvenile
detention facility to an adult facility if it is determined that his/her
presence is a demonstrated threat to the safety or security of other juveniles
or staff of the juvenile facility. Under such placements, the separation
and supervision requirements for juveniles within an adult facility must
be met. Although utilized infrequently, such placements do occur.
Disproportionate Representation of Minority Youth in Secure
Facilities
Under
the JJDP Act, states must address the disproportionate representation
of minority youth in secure facilities, where such conditions exist.
Training
of juvenile justice professionals and service providers, system improvements
in juvenile court processes, legal representation of youth, sentencing
alternatives, and law enforcement are all integral parts of Virginia’s
strategy.
The
1996 Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission recommended that the
judiciary engage in a voluntary assessment of race neutral sentencing.
A Race Neutral Sentencing Committee has been operating since 1996. The
Juvenile Court Judges Committee of Disproportionate Minority Confinement
has developed training for their colleagues at the 1996 and 1997 Voluntary
and Mandatory Judicial Training Conferences. A bench book was developed
by the Committee and distributed to all juvenile judges in August of 1998.
The Committee began to address issues of increasing community collaboration
in service provision in 1998.
The
Supreme Court of Virginia has received a multi-year State Justice Institute
Grant to provide cultural competency training for judges, magistrates
and clerks at all levels of Virginia’s Judiciary. The Supreme Court
of Virginia has also addressed the growing issue of language barriers
to the administration of justice. Criteria for qualifying translators
for court have been established.
Virginia
has examined policies and procedures to ensure appropriate confinement
release criteria, parole services, and community-based treatment for minority
youth in the juvenile justice system in Virginia.
Minority
Overrepresentation Indices
The
"at risk" juvenile population of Virginia (aged 10 to 17) is
comprised of approximately 24% juveniles classified as black and 8% juveniles
classified as of other racial origin. Those classified as of other racial
origin include Hispanics (4%3), Asian and Pacific islanders
(4%), and American Indians (less than 1%).
To
compute indices to determine whether minority juveniles are over-represented
at various stages in the juvenile justice system, the percentage of a
minority at that stage is divided by the percentage in the juvenile at
risk population. For example, the percentage of arrests of juveniles classified
as black is divided by the percentage of juveniles classified as black
in the at risk juvenile population. This provides an index that will be
1.0 if juveniles in the justice system are represented exactly as they
are in the population. If the index is above 1.0, they are over-represented;
if it is under 1.0, they are underrepresented. The minority population
is depicted as total minority, black, and other racial origin.
These
data were collected from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Virginia State
Police Uniform Crime Reports, and the Virginia Department of Juvenile
Justice. Population estimates are based on 1990 census data which is now
10 years old. Those estimates are then adjusted with state-specific data
on births, deaths, international and domestic migration. As the data are
categorized more finely, as for race, they become less reliable. Because
the indices use racial percentage in the population as one of the components,
only large differences can be considered meaningful.
The
following figure displays the state indices for arrests, secure detention,
and correctional centers for the period 1995 to 1998. Equivalency in the
population and system, that is 1.0, is shown as a dotted line in each
graph. The vertical axes range from 0 to 3.0.
For each
graph, the population classified as of other racial origin is underrepresented
in the juvenile justice system relative to their representation in the
population. Juveniles classified as black are over-represented in the
system. The temporal trend shows little change over the four-year period,
although, in the correctional center data, there is a decrease in the
index from 2.6 in 1995 to 2.3 in 1998 for persons classified as black.
This represents a decrease of 18% from 1119 to 921.
Click
here to view Figure 4 - Disproportionate Minority Confinement Indices
for Juvenile Arrests and Detention (1995-1998).
Notes
1
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, possession of alcohol by a minor is a
criminal offense.
2
A co-located facility is defined as a separate juvenile detention
facility, located upon the site of an adult regional facility, approved
by the Department of Juvenile Justice and certified by the Department
of Corrections.
3
Percentages are based on population estimates for 1998.
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