(somber music) (excited music) - Connecticut has a new set of laws aimed at addressing juvenile crime.

It comes a year after outcry over car thefts and COVID-19 lockdowns.

I'm Walter Smith Randolph.

And tonight, you'll hear from lawmakers, youth advocates, and most importantly, teenagers about this new set of laws and how it will impact the juvenile justice system.

This is Connecticut Public and you're watching CUTLINE "Spotlight on Juvenile Justice."

(excited music) - On June 29th, I lost my good friend, Henryk Gudelski He lost his life because when he was running, he got hurt by this guy who was arrested 13 times in three years.

And he was a runner, he was running on a sidewalk.

He did everything correctly.

- [Walter] It was the crash that shook the state.

53-year-old Henryk Gudelski was jogging on a New Britain sidewalk training for his 41st marathon when an out-of-control vehicle jumped the curb and slammed into him, taking his life.

- It was probably one of the hardest things to see in a career of law enforcement.

It's hard to watch.

It's hard to see.

And it's preventable.

And I think that's the issue.

It's completely preventable and it happened.

- [Walter] Police say 17-year-old Luis Pagan-Gonzalez was behind the wheel of a stolen Audi when he hit Gudelski.

The teenager had been released from juvenile detention two weeks prior, after being arrested 13 times.

- I want an answer.

I really do want an answer why this guy who killed my friend was on the street was still not in jail and killed my friend.

Why?

- If the juvenile justice system did like it promises it does, is to deter these behaviors, change these behaviors, get these juveniles who are misbehaving on the right path, this wouldn't have happened.

Unfortunately, it happened.

And there was a pattern and then everybody can see it coming.

- [Walter] Pagan-Gonzalez has pleaded not guilty.

- It struck to the core and it was very difficult to hear that.

It was difficult to process.

And it just really, I guess, to a lot of people, just shine a light of that.

We have a serious problem with our juvenile crime.

- [Walter] The crash happened at the same time Connecticut saw a small rise in motor vehicle thefts, which thrust juvenile crime and violent car thefts into the political spotlight.

- The current system is failing.

You don't have to tell me, I know better than anyone else.

Our justice system is broken when it comes to juveniles.

In New Britain's case, somebody is now dead because of it.

Something has got to give.

Something's gotta change.

- [Walter] After months of debate, Connecticut solution was a so-called Crime Bill that's aimed at addressing the concerns of juvenile crime.

The new law allows GPS monitoring of repeat juvenile offenders.

Provides therapy, mentoring, and other services pre-conviction and requires arraignment within five days.

But both Republicans and Democrats aren't completely satisfied with the new law.

They say it's reactionary and doesn't address the heart of the matter.

- Although I'm standing as a proponent of the bill, I don't think there's a victory here today.

I think that we have gotten here because of a conversation that people engaged in before they knew the facts on the ground.

- And I really do believe that if we just chip away little by little at the situation regarding law and order and juvenile justice after crimes occur, that we're never going to really make the strides in making our state, safer and more prosperous and better for our young people in particular.

- When we look at juveniles, you get arrested the first time, guaranteed nothing's going to happen, unless it's something that shocks the conscience.

And that goes for the second, third, fourth, fifth, 12th.

We say second chance.

But in the state of Connecticut, it's the 30th chance, the 40th chance.

At what point do we break this cycle?

- [Walter] And some youth advocates like Christina Quaranta are also not happy with the bill.

She says the bill provides a quicker route to incarceration, and that starts with GPS monitoring.

- More ways to lock up young people, to make it easier to bring someone into the detention, to hold them longer and sort of changing some of the mechanisms that exist to hold someone in an adult prison as well, which we know doesn't improve public safety.

- [Walter] Quaranta says youth need more services.

That was especially true during the pandemic when schools were closed.

For troubled teens, those services are often assigned through the court process, but for months, courts here were behind.

An analysis by Connecticut Public found the clearance rate for delinquency cases dropped to a 10-year low.

Quaranta says while Connecticut's youth offenders do need more programs and funding, she finds the whole conversation around car thefts and juvenile offenders troubling.

- I think that's disappointing, because, and sort of deceptive for the citizens and their constituents of Connecticut.

Because if you're actually going to do something about youth crime, you should do something that's going to be effective.

(mysterious music) - [Walter] And researchers also say the outcry over juvenile crime isn't supported by the numbers.

- Do we have a juvenile crime problem?

Not really.

I mean, not certainly not in historical context.

Are there juveniles out there committing crimes?

Yes.

Is there a system in place to try and deal with those juveniles?

Yes.

Is juvenile crime significantly worse today than it was 10 and 20 years ago?

No, in fact, actually it's better.

- [Walter] Ken Barone is associate director of the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at the University of Connecticut.

He says motor vehicle thefts in particular are near historic lows.

- Motor vehicle thefts really peaked in Connecticut in the 1990s.

Through the 1990s, we averaged about 19,000 car thefts every year.

In the past decade, we've averaged anywhere between 6,000 and 8,000 car thefts a year.

So a far cry from the motor vehicle thefts of the '90s.

- [Walter] Barone says the crime garners more attention today because it's largely shifted into the suburbs.

- The problem was pretty isolated to our major urban cores.

It was Bridgeport, it was Hartford, it was New Haven, it was Waterbury, it was Stamford.

But the problem of auto thefts has shifted into more suburban communities.

You would have communities, small, again, suburban communities that might have historically experienced five, six, seven car thefts a year.

And now all of a sudden, they were experiencing 25 car thefts a year.

- [Walter] Despite this Police Chief Chute says it's undeniable that some teens are staying on the wrong path.

And he says that won't change.

- Our stance, it's not that we need to lock up all of the juveniles.

We need a holistic approach to these repeat offenders.

I think we definitely need the deterrence factor.

We definitely need the courts to take a stronger look at some of these cases.

We need the laws to be a little bit stricter, but we also need those services to get that offender to change their behaviors.

That's the ultimate goal.

Change their behaviors, get them on a path of leading a productive life.

But we need that holistic approach.

(mysterious music) - [Walter] It's an election year, which means any hot topic is a campaign topic.

And juvenile justice is no different.

While incoming governor Ned Lamont supports this new set of laws, his Republican challenger, Bob Stefanowski says it comes a little too late.

Here's Jacqui Rabe Thomas one-on-one with Governor Ned Lamont.

- Thank you, Governor for sitting down with us today to talk about juvenile crime and youth justice.

Is youth crime a problem in Connecticut right now?

- Yes, youth crime is a problem and crime is a problem, but pull the lens back a little bit, Connecticut is one of the very safest states in the country compared to some of those Southern states where everybody's walking around packing heat.

Our crime rate, especially violent crime, especially shooting, especially murder is 1/3, 1/4 of what it is in some of those areas.

That said, coming out of COVID, there's a lot of extreme behavior.

And some of that's reflected in youth crime.

- When you talk about youth crime, a lot of the discussion has been about perception of youth crime and certain legislators and advocates urging for people to look at the data.

And I'm curious your thoughts on, do you think youth crime has increased and is it still on the rise or where are we at compared to where we were say two or three years ago?

- We're up, well, compared to pre-COVID.

Trending down over the last six, nine months.

I'd like to think some of that is permanent.

Some of that is related to kids getting back to school, getting back to a new normal being with their friends.

I'm not naive.

I know that the warm long summer months are about to start.

You may see some increased activity, but I could tell you, James Rovella, the state police, the municipal police, more cops on the beat than we've had years, have an eye on things.

- Several legislators, when they were talking about the Youth Crime Bill that was approved, they brought up that disengagement youth crime has been a problem in their communities in the cities for years.

But now, car thefts have moved to the suburbs.

So now it's gained increased attention.

Could you just talk a little bit about how the suburban conversation and the politics is surrounding this discussion?

- Youth crime in our cities has been an issue for decades and every once in a while, when you have the car thefts that impact the suburbs, that politically charges the situation.

- When we talk about the Youth Crime Bill, the Juvenile Justice Bill that was approved, what in that bill do you think is going to have the largest impact that people in communities will see?

- I think for me, number one, is the judges giving them the full range of information they need.

Is this a one or two first time youthful offense?

Give them the discretion to know what to do with that kid to get them back on the straight and true.

Or is this a repeat offender perhaps related to a gang?

- One of the changes that the bill makes is that it will have kids before judges within five days.

And it also requires or allows for a needs assessment, a service needs assessment for kids to start getting services earlier and not have to wait for their case to be fully processed.

Could you just talk a little bit about the intention behind the needs assessment coming sooner rather than later?

- We're making sure that the arraignment happens as soon as possible.

I think we're saying five days.

I do believe that justice delayed is justice denied.

Especially for a young person, there ought to be some immediate accountability so people have a better sense of what's going on.

And I'll be blunt, I mean, Jacqui, you know things slowed up quite a bit during COVID.

The courts were barely in sessions.

So things bollocksed up.

I heard from the cops, "Hey, I thought I picked this kid up two weeks ago and there they are again."

So what this means in terms of the judges and getting a quicker resolution makes a difference?

Some of these kids, a very small minority, I might say, are really repeat chronic offenders.

The vast majority are different levels of being a knucklehead or doing something that was stupid or doing something that was dangerous or doing something that was uncharacteristic.

And I wanna make sure that we find the right way to take care of them with the supports and mentoring and apprenticeship and programs they need to get them back in the game.

- What role does youth detention and youth incarceration play into this conversation?

- I think it's the absolute last resort.

I think very few of kids come out of incarceration better.

No kids come out of adult prison any better.

So I think you should be very careful about that.

But some young people, maybe there're only 15 or 16 can be a real danger to themselves and a danger to the community.

- So Connecticut has decreased the number of children incarcerated faster than almost every other state in the country.

Some are concerned, some advocates are concerned that this bill, the Youth Crime Bill is a faster route to getting kids back into incarceration and back into detention.

Things like GPS monitoring.

Is the intention behind this bill to route more kids to detention, if necessary under these different changes?

- No, I don't think that's true at all.

Look, we have the biggest commitment to mental health this state has seen maybe forever.

We're adding counselors into our schools.

We've got apprenticeship programs and mentoring programs.

We have a variety of other intermediate facilities for kids.

Last thing I want is a 15-year-old being incarcerated.

I don't think anything good comes out of that unless there are danger to the community.

- One of the big claims that has have been made by those who paint a picture of Connecticut is not as safe because of some of the reforms.

That we've gone to far here in Connecticut.

Is that youth are able to understand that there's no real consequences?

that police catch them and then they have to release them.

That there's no real accountability.

What do you say to that?

- We got a strong bipartisan crime bill passed because we're holding people accountable.

Your question is, what's the punishment for that kid?

Do they go right to jail?

Do they go to adult jail?

Or what are the interventions that we could do to help them get back on their feet?

But I want people to know we're doing everything we can first and foremost, to keep you safe and do what I can for these kids so you don't have a lot of repeat offenders.

- As far as spending, the appropriation or the budget bill provides about $25 million for juvenile justice programs.

Things like project longevity, other initiatives to help kids not get further involved into trouble.

Is that going to be enough?

Or do you suspect that all these reporting requirements about staffing levels of probation officers, as well as programs outcomes, that there's gonna be wait lists that are found in the programs and that there's service gaps.

- Let's see.

I don't know.

But I do know it's one of the bigger increases that we've had in decades.

Really focused on intervention, really focused on these kids, really focused on justice as well as more cops.

Really focused on project longevity.

We're focused from the community or policing the community.

Now, I don't want more police.

I want more police to reflect the diversity of the community.

I want you to be able to walk down the street.

You see a cop that looks maybe like yourself.

Are we doing enough?

Should we do more?

Let's get back to me in a year.

- Any final thoughts on anything we didn't talk about when it comes to youth justice and youth crime?

- I think we've gone through a lot.

We've gone through COVID hell.

And long COVID is not just respiratory.

A lot of it is the stress.

A lot of is the mental health.

I see it in domestic abuse.

I see it in addiction.

I see that in crimes.

I see that in shooting.

And we're trying to come up with a holistic approach.

It's not a law and order approach.

Although I got more cops on the street and I told you what we're doing with the judges, but our biggest emphasis is doing everything I can to save that kid, get them back on track, do what we can to give them hope and give them an alternative.

- Thanks, Governor.

- Nice to see you.

Thanks, Jacqui.

- Mr. Stefanowski, thank you so much for joining us here on CUTLINE.

- Thanks for having me on.

- So we're talking about juvenile justice.

Last summer, you wrote a bunch of op-eds.

I know one that was in the Wall Street Journal.

Where you basically said, Governor Lamont and the Democrats were not addressing juvenile justice.

Do you still feel that way?

- Well, I think it's been an issue for a while in Connecticut and that's why I tried to point it out in a couple of the editorials.

I do think Governor Lamont avoided the topic for the last couple years.

I think had we addressed it earlier, we could have saved some lives.

And we could have saved some kids from getting into some bad things.

It seems like in an election year.

He's finally focused on it.

I applaud him for that.

I think we should have addressed it two years ago.

- What do you think exactly is the issue?

- I think you have to take a holistic approach to this.

First of all, you have to look at the kids involved.

They're early in their lives.

Everybody makes mistakes.

I know I made my share of mistakes growing up.

And I think you have to start with the kids, is that it's not good for them to be going down this course.

So I think we need earlier intervention.

- What does early intervention look like to you?

- Well, having the counseling services available for kids, making them more aware of the consequences of their actions, having some more support to the entire family, because this is a family issue.

And making kids aware that there's other options out there rather than going down this path.

And I think particularly with COVID, we should be doing more for kids in Connecticut today, kids lost a couple years of social development, of academic development.

They've been at home.

They haven't had a place to go.

We've got a big budget surplus in Connecticut.

I think we should be using some more of that to support kids in our community.

- If you are elected governor, would you commit to funding more afterschool activities, maybe the judicial system as well, the juvenile justice system?

- Absolutely.

Especially, we're fortunate to be in a situation with a budget surplus.

Where better place could we use that funding than for kids?

My wife and I had done a lot of stuff with the Boys & Girls Club in Bridgeport.

And just to see the kids to have an activity after school, to have access to a computer and internet.

I see it in the town of Madison, where I live, where we've got great activities for kids after school.

So this is not a city versus a suburb thing.

This is about our entire community.

What better way to spend that money than to invest it in our kids, invest it in their future.

And probably most importantly, when a kid starts to veer off track, whether he takes or she takes that first catalytic converter or steels a car or gets caught doing something.

To stop it there.

To give that kid the support at that point so that they get on the right track.

I think you can blame part of it on COVID, but I also think you can blame it on a lack of attention by this governor and his administration to kids across the state.

- Well, part of it too, is when we were doing our research is that we found that some of the juveniles who were committing crimes during COVID, they could not get help.

The intervention that you're talking about until after their case was adjudicated.

What would you do differently to change that?

- Well, I'm not sure we should have shut down the schools as long as we did.

I think we could have reopened sooner in a safe way.

I think that would've helped.

If we're able to provide classes online, then we should have been able to invest and I know it's not the same as being one-to-one like we are but I do think we could have done more online.

I don't think we should be using COVID as an excuse because even with COVID over right now, crime is up relative to the past couple years.

So I think it's kind of an easy excuse to say that it was COVID.

I don't think we're gonna see a slow down this summer.

- You mentioned that COVID is not an excuse, but we do know that since the pandemic has been kind of waning away, that we've seen car thefts go down.

And the crime that you mentioned has gone up, we've seen it happening across the nation.

It doesn't sound like it's just a Connecticut problem.

Well what would you contribute to if it's not COVID, if it's not kids, just having more free time not in schools.

- Well, the beauty of politics is you can pull a stat to prove everything I can tell you from what I'm hearing.

And I was with the police department the other day.

Catalytic converters stolen out of control.

Car thefts, I guess it depends on what city you're in, is up.

It continues to be up.

And we haven't even gotten into the summer months.

But put that aside, to me, the national statistics are relevant, but I'm running the State of Connecticut.

And I need to focus on how to protect the kids within the State of Connecticut and that's what I'm going to do.

- Let's talk about the Crime Bill.

We know that the general assembly finally got it passed.

You had called for a special session last summer, that did not happen.

What do you think about what they're calling this Crime Bill, this juvenile justice?

- In fairness to Governor Lamont, I think it's a step in the right direction.

I don't know why we didn't call a special session last year.

We should have.

It could have prevented a lot of damage had we done it when I called for it.

I think a lot of the bills he's passing right now are marginally good.

I think whether it's the tax cut or whether it's the Juvenile Crime Bill.

I know I'm biased, but in my opinion, I think a lot of them are doing just enough to be able to put a campaign commercial out there that says you've done something.

So we extended the amount of time that you can hold the juvenile from six to eight hours.

I guess that helps.

I've been calling for GPS monitoring for a couple years.

He finally did it.

I give him credit for that.

But things like, again, I was with the police department the other day, if you get a juvenile and you wanna file out the paperwork and it's after hours, you've gotta track town a judge.

You've gotta drive to 11 o'clock at night to a judge's house.

So we need to have the ability to go to the courts and find out what the situation is.

Repeat offenders.

We've got kids stealing cars, 12, 13 times.

I mean, there needs to be some more active guidance, some more active monitoring, more active intervention.

And we'll see, hopefully, the governor's bill improves the situation somewhat.

I give him credit for doing it, I think it's too late, but I think we could go a little bit further in terms of the amount we're investing having people come in and be accessible to these kids to get them back on the right track.

I'm not sure the bill does enough for that.

- What would it look different for you?

If you were the governor and you were in charge of drafting a bill or getting your party draft the bill, what would that look like?

- Well, we're in an age right now where I can talk to my daughter, I can see her face in 30 seconds.

Why don't we have the electronic capability for a police officer, and maybe we only need an hour.

That would be ideal rather than eight hours.

Why can't we have online access to somebody on the judicial side?

Why aren't the different branches more interconnected?

We've got ancient IT systems in the State of Connecticut.

This should be instantaneous.

You pick up a kid, you should be able to know within five minutes, whether he or she has prior arrests.

If you need to talk to a judge, you should be able to Skype that person in within 30 seconds.

I think eight hours in an ideal world is way too long.

We should be able to make a decision quickly.

If it's a first offense, get the kid back home, get him back to his or her family.

Have the parents be involved, have some counseling come in.

We're living in the stone age in Connecticut.

Why do you need to hold somebody who just stole a car or a catalytic converter for eight hours?

We need to apply technology to it.

We need to apply funding to it.

And I think for a couple years, we've just been ignoring it and it's finally caught up with us.

I'm not gonna let that happen when I'm governor, I'm gonna address it right out of the gate.

- Are you looking at opening more juvenile detention facilities, or are you looking at more facilities that may have tighter restrictions, looser restrictions?

- I'm not advocating for building more prisons for kids, but there needs to be something in the middle between a kid stealing that third car and putting them with people in a maximum security type situation.

Those conditions are not good for the kids.

They're not good for the other inmates.

- If you're governor, does the juvenile facility look more something like the Connecticut Junior Public in Litchfield, or something more like the Manson Youth Institute or CJTS?

What does it look like for you?

- I don't know the answer to that.

I don't wanna compare facilities.

I think it needs to be secure, but it also needs to be livable.

You don't wanna be putting a kid behind bars.

You want it to be accessible.

You wanna allow for the parents to come in and be with that kid.

You wanna have a lot of counseling services around him.

You want it to look a lot more like this room than a typical prison.

And you want to create a safe, healthy, positive environment for these kids.

This is not about putting a kid behind bars to punish them.

This is about creating a safe, supportive, nurturing environment to get those kids back on track so that they don't go down that path.

This is a real issue.

And I've got three daughters.

I'm blessed.

I see what's happening around the state.

I grew up in Connecticut and it's just not right.

And if we were struggling for money right now, and you had to cut back programs, that would be one thing.

But we've got a surplus.

The governor's spending a lot of money on a lot of things right now.

We should be investing in our kids to help the kids, to help the people that are impacted and this is our future in Connecticut.

We're fortunate to be able to address it.

We need to address it.

- Mr. Stefanowski, thank you so much for your time.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you very much.

- While it's up to lawmakers that come up with new laws focusing on juvenile crime, it's up to the judicial branch to handle these court cases.

So what are they seeing inside of the system?

And do they think these new laws will work?

Once again, here's Jacqui Rabe Thomas - Hi, Tasha.

Thanks for being here with us today.

Appreciate it.

I'd like to start a little bit talking about how we've gotten to this point.

Could you talk a little bit about youth crime and what the judicial branch in Court Support Services is seeing as far as youth, youth crime?

- We've looked at our practices.

We've looked at our services.

We've had conversations with stakeholders, with families, with kids, about ways that we can help address some of the concerns, that we are hearing.

And so, we've made some program changes, taking a look at our continuum to see.

Do we have services in our continuum that are designed to address the needs of kids who we see falling into the deep end of the system?

And where it's appropriate, we've procured additional services to address any gaps.

- Could you talk a little bit about how the pandemic impacted youth crime?

- Well, I think everyone experienced the challenge of lockdown and just being in the home.

And when we're talking about kids and not being able to move about in the way that they traditionally move about, not really being able to attend school and do what kids traditionally do.

I think it made it difficult during the pandemic for us to really see what we would expect to see from kids and their ability to kinda maintain themselves in the community.

And so, as things started to spike and as our efforts to address some of those behaviors started to really go into play and really help kids and families figure out ways to manage through the pandemic, Things started to settle.

The return to in person services.

And just being able to connect with people I think has made a difference.

- One of the things in the new Juvenile Justice Bill is the intention to speed up services to get them to children faster who are getting into trouble.

Getting kids before a judge within five days, assessing their needs within two weeks, if it's determined that's appropriate.

Could you just talk a little bit about how that is different than what's currently happening?

- The current structure is that until that adjudication happens or they accept responsibility, you are kind of at a somewhat of a disadvantage, as far as being able to assess and get kids connected to services.

Under this new bill, it would allow us to assess kids much earlier in the process to make sure that we are connecting them to the right services.

I think having someone come into a system and not get those services immediately does create opportunities for the behaviors to escalate and for kids to continue to pick up new charges and get to a point where efforts to rehabilitate become even more challenging.

So we're encouraged by this change because we think it will allow juvenile probation officers to get in much earlier, connect with kids and start to build that rapport, that trust and connect with families and engage them so that we can better understand the services and the ways that we can help them address the behaviors that brought their child into the court.

- One of the other things that the Crime Bill, the so-called Youth Crime Bill, is to provide the judicial branch, the ability to do electronic monitoring.

Could you just talk a little bit about what that looks like?

- I do think that that's something that will aid us in being able to determine, not just if they're coming and going, but actually where they are going.

And so that would be a new process for us in juvenile probation.

The truth of the matter is that the research is somewhat mixed with respect to the way in which to use GPS with kids.

- One of the other changes allows you to expand the amount, the term of probation for up to 60 months, five years.

How is that a shift for serious firearm offenses and some other serious offenses?

How is that a shift from current practice?

- It's different because right now, if a child is placed on a period of probation, they can be placed on that period of supervision for 18 months with the possibility of a 12-month extension.

And so of course, five years certainly is a departure away from that practice.

I do believe that what's most important is looking at what happens during that time period, it does allow for more intervention, more planning and ensuring stability during the course of the supervision.

It's I think an opportunity for us to really engage kids who are charged with those most serious offenses and ensure that they have the supports as well as the interventions that are needed.

- Connecticut has reduced the number of children incarcerated faster than almost every other state in the country.

I'm curious if you think that's a success story or do you think Connecticut's less safe because of that?

- I think it is a success story.

And so I do believe that the reforms in our state, they've led to us becoming a national model and that the work to divert kids away from the system, from the juvenile justice system who are better served in other systems that may not have anything at all to do with their conduct, but really addressing the root cause of what may have brought them into the system.

- I'm curious if your thoughts on the Crime Bill, if it could potentially lead to more youth being incarcerated, things like increased GPS monitoring, potentially serving as opponents to the bill have said, that it makes it easier to find violations if you're constantly tracking and monitoring someone.

As well as judges now needing to write down why they will deny a detention order.

And I guess I'm curious if you feel like the Crime Bill could potentially serve as bringing more kids into that system of detention.

- Well, I think anything is possible, right?

But it does come down oftentimes to implementation.

We are looking at the pieces that impact us and trying to come up with ways to implement these changes that are consistent with best practices in juvenile justice, best practices in family engagement to ensure that we aren't doing more harm than good.

And so that's our commitment.

- Do you feel like there are enough programs for youth in the system and job training and drug treatment, or is there a shortage of availability there?

- Unfortunately like many jurisdictions, what you'll find is that there may be pockets throughout the state where maybe the same level of service or intervention may not be readily available for a child.

That's something that we will assess to ensure that we aren't missing, you know, an opportunity to provide a service that's unique for that child.

- And then my final question is with all the changes that the legislature has made to the juvenile justice system this past session, what's the big takeaway?

What should the public take away from this?

- I think a takeaway is that that's a comprehensive bill that required a great deal of collaboration amongst stakeholders.

It's a bipartisan bill.

And so I think the takeaway is that we are all working towards the same goal, which is that we want kids just to be better off.

- Thank you so much for your time.

I thank appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- Once a juvenile case works its way through the court system, a juvenile offender may be sent to a facility located in the state.

In Litchfield County, there's a minimum security facility called the Connecticut Junior Republic.

So what are they seeing inside the system?

Jacqui Rabe Thomas sits down with the director.

- Thanks Dan, for having us at Connecticut Junior Republic.

We really appreciate it.

Could you talk a little bit about how children end up here?

- Sure, so we run three different residential programs on this campus right now.

And at this point, they're sending us kids through the juvenile court system.

So all the kids that here have been identified as committing some type of offense within their communities, have been processed and reviewed and evaluated by the courts and determined that this level of care, which is a residential treatment level of care, would be appropriate to meet their needs.

- And so walk me through what some of those needs look like.

What needs are they not having met in their community?

- Right now, we're seeing a lot of educational deficiencies.

They've typically had two years of COVID-level educational services.

So they're behind academically.

We're seeing kids with a variety of different family dynamic issues.

We're seeing kids with some mental health and behavioral health needs.

We're seeing kids that really have struggled due to issues in their own communities.

With poverty, racism, systemic biases that impact their ability to maybe meet the regular grade and demands of other kids in their communities.

So we're seeing a variety of different reasons why they're here.

- There's been a lot of attention in the state by some who are concerned that crime is out of control.

Specifically, juvenile crime is out of control.

And that youth don't feel like there's real consequences for your action.

You work with youth every day.

Do you feel that's sort of the tone and the feeling among the youth you serve here?

- So it depends on what type of offenses they are committing.

So right now, we see a lot of kids that have some auto theft issues.

And I think there's been some delays in the processing of some of those cases.

So kids typically can steal more than one car, two to three to four or five different instances before maybe they get to us.

We would always advocate for services at point of contact.

So after the first offense or the first problem, if we can get services in place quicker, it's always much better and you get better outcomes.

But I do think that the pandemic and the system that has been trying to catch up has caused some of that.

- When it comes to just how many kids are taken out of their families and out of their communities and put in things like detention or residential care, Connecticut has seen one of the fastest declines in the nation, as far as kids who are incarcerated specifically.

What's your reaction to, how has that made Connecticut safer or less safe, do you believe?

- Well, I think Connecticut has done a good job of trying to put in prevention level programs that are in their homes and also within their communities.

So that has also led to some of the decrease in the need for residential congregate care in kinda locked facilities.

But I think that we have the capacity to even do a better job on that.

I think we really decimated some of our prevention levels of care, early intervention levels of care.

- When you walk around this campus, and walk into the living quarters like where we're sitting now, you don't see locks on the doors locking kids in.

Could you just talk a little bit about your thought process of not having secure facilities?

I know that you've expressed to the judicial branch and others, that that's not really something Connecticut Junior Republic is interested in.

- So I think once you start to put locks on programs.

Hardware secure programming, you take away from some of the treatment components that you're able to provide.

And also, I think that a lot of kids, especially the kids we work with, once you start to lock them in, their focus is on how can I get out?

Rather than what do I need to do to work on?

What got me here?

Well our mission is to provide care and treatment and education.

I think that takes away from some of that.

- What's the goal of removing the child from their community to here?

What's the purpose of that?

Why couldn't it be done in sort of an outpatient type of treatment?

- Well, typically for the kids we get here, it's already been tried in an outpatient level.

And those haven't been successful.

So the kids that we're seeing here require really intensive levels of care.

And so they need to get a, sometimes be taken out of that environment so that they can kinda relax.

They can look at things a little differently.

They can focus on their own needs and not the needs, maybe of their family, of their peers.

They can get away from some of the stressors that they're dealing with and that they have to deal with every day.

And look at things, you know, in terms of internal, what do I need from me to be better?

And sometimes, that takes a little while.

It's an artificial environment, but it's a safe environment.

And it's an environment that we can wrap a lot of things around those kids.

- I'm curious about what you're hearing as far as why kids are stealing cars.

What's the mindset, given the conversation that's been playing out around the state about car thefts.

Why do you think a kid would steal a car?

- So just from my discussions with the young men that we have here and the staff that work with them every day, it's an issue of, almost hopelessness for some of these kids.

So they're coming to us not thinking they're gonna make it past 25 years old.

They've seen losses.

Either their friends and families have been involved in violent episodes.

They've been incarcerated.

There's been some kind of trauma-based situation that's really negative.

So they don't have long-term goals.

So when you don't have long-term goals, what you try to do is live for the moment, live for the day.

If today's gonna be successful by me just having fun and stealing a car, and joyriding all day, or getting a car and getting high all day, I'm gonna do that because I have to live for the moment 'cause I don't have a lot of goals and expectations that tomorrow's gonna be be here or be better.

So it's almost a system where we're not setting them up for long-term success because they're looking at immediate gratification.

There's some monetary benefits to that.

But more of it is I think, I just want to have fun and do what I wanna do today.

- As far as availability of services, this facility right here is going to be opening up soon to add more beds for children who need that level of care.

Is there a gap in the amount of residential least restrictive environments for children in this state?

- Well, the State of Connecticut has gotten rid of more beds for adolescent programs than any state that I know of in the country.

The Department of Children and Families has promoted that they really downsized their congregated care settings.

The judicial branch is really focused on trying to service more kids in the community.

Now these are all great goals and when no one can disagree that most kids would be better off with their families in their home communities.

But the kids that we see really need to take a break from that community and get themselves in a better place before they can go back.

So I think there's a gap, in terms of the availability, the need.

There's also a gap in transitional housing for a lot of our kids.

And I think that we have kids that are here that probably need a transitional living environment to really be successful rather than go back home to their community.

I tell folks, I say, sometimes the kids come here and they make drastic changes.

They're in a much better place, but when they go back, their neighborhood might not have changed.

Their peer group might not have changed.

And the things they did in that neighborhood, the people there still remember.

So they're still really at risk themselves when they go back.

And I think some of them realize that and would be able to, if I could go to a transitional living environment and graduate high school and become 18, 19 and a young adult where I had more control over my own life and my own situation, I might not have to do that.

And that's a gap in the system.

And those types of programs are missing with the juvenile justice population.

- Well thank you for taking the time.

I really appreciate it.

- Thank you so much.

- Tonight, you've heard from lawmakers, law enforcement and youth advocates about juvenile justice.

They are often the loudest voices when it comes to talking about this topic.

But what do teenagers need and what do their peers need to stay out of trouble?

We sat down with a group of youth from Hartford to get their take.

- How did it feel like putting in at work and not being able to even have of what's at that table?

- I wasn't truly heard.

- [Walter] They're tough conversations to have, but for these Hartford teenagers, it's everyday life.

That's why they meet twice a month to talk and strategize about how to get youth voices heard.

As debate rages about youth crime, the Center for Children's Advocacy and their Youth Speaks Up Group has made elevating youth voices their mission.

After all, the group's motto is "Nothing about us without us".

- I think they count us out.

Experience definitely makes a difference.

- Which is crazy 'cause I mean, y'all are the most impacted by these decisions.

- We're here at the Semilla Cafe here in Hartford.

Thanks for everyone for getting together to have a conversation about youth crime as well as solutions.

So I wanna start with you, Jaqueline.

Can you talk a little bit about whether or not you feel like the youth voice is being heard in the conversation around youth crime?

- I can say that we're trying to make headway into getting our voices heard.

You know, you have a seat at the table, but you're kinda just there to be seen and not heard.

We went through doing written testimonies.

We sat at meetings.

We did a lot to try to be heard, but it's more of adults speaking and not really us.

Like we sit back and watch them talk and we don't really get our point across 'cause we're young and it's just adults really talking in the meetings.

But we try and we keep trying and we're not gonna give up.

- So with the conversation that's happening across the state about youth crime, what do you think needs to be said?

- Kids are not, there's nothing for them to do.

Like during COVID, they kinda just got thrown to kind of for the wolves a little bit and there was no maintenance, there was no structure for them.

So they just had to survive.

- When you hear the conversation that's taking place about youth crime in the state, what do you think?

How do you digest the conversation that's happening and what you're seeing when working with youth in the community?

- Youth are being seen and not heard.

I think how can you dare make decisions around what works best for the community without the actual input of those most impacted, which are our youth?

And I think we're talking about youth crime in the sense of how do we react to youth crime rather than how do we prevent youth from being in these situations?

What resources are needed?

What can we do to be the net that catches these youth when they're falling?

Given the fact that these disparities are directly connected to systemic racism.

- Leanne, could you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the schools?

- Programming is, they're missing.

So we know that school discipline is a direct feeder into the juvenile justice system.

So when students are suspended or expelled and they have that additional time where they don't have schoolwork to do or a place to go, their parents are usually working, the whole saying, idle minds.

That's usually when they end up getting involved in criminal activity or things that lead them down the path of juvenile justice.

And then we also know that a lot of students who do end up with a lot of school disciplinary issues have special education needs that haven't been addressed or they might be in high school and they're reading at like a fourth grade level.

So those students will act up so that they can get kicked out of the classroom so they don't have to be.

So there's different things there that haven't been addressed that end up leading into the juvenile justice system.

And we look at the school data as well as the juvenile justice data and just trying and come figure out what's working and what's not working and where we can make changes.

- Jaqueline and Luna, I'm curious how the justice system has impacted your families and your community.

- A lot of us are losing our friends.

So like it's not even just like, the car thefts and stuff like that.

There are other things that are playing a part into us losing like kids our age.

I mean, nobody should see their friend at 21 have a grave closed on them, just because they were trying to do everything they could to survive and get out.

And it led them either in a prison or in a graveyard.

And I feel like that's not okay.

I think that that's our mentality as Black and brown people, because that's what we've been shown.

And I think that that's really an issue.

- It's hard 'cause especially being young and having friends that are in jail, it's not the same with them being here with us.

You have to do phone calls, it's not the same.

At that, you only get a certain amount of phone calls.

15 minutes at that.

It's not the same from them being home and trying to survive in this world and it's not easy.

- What do you think could help your communities reduce crime in your communities?

- We need more afterschool programs.

We need more open events.

We need more of everything.

- [Jaqueline] Like more good stuff.

- I think that and easy to like join in.

'Cause we have to go through a lot to even join a program.

None of us feel powerful enough to want to go out and do anything on our own.

I mean, granted all of us are learning have been taught how to survive.

So a lot of us are not getting the feeling of actually living and being a kid.

- When it comes to the recent Crime Bill, as it's been called, that the legislature passed, one of the solutions that the legislature came up with was to increase GPS monitoring.

I know some of the work that you all have done is surrounding police surveillance.

You think that GPS is gonna help with reduced crime in the state?

- Oh absolutely not.

I don't understand how surveilling and increasing policing on youth, especially Black and brown youth is gonna help the problem.

I feel like it's another way to react rather than to prevent.

And I think if police were focused more on building healthy relationships with community, rather than seeing themselves as this external force that needs to watch the community, I think things could be a lot different.

- I think that if they were just to walk in the communities and not look like such a threat.

- Leanne, could you talk a little bit about the role that police officers are playing in school?

I noticed in Waterbury, the number of kids being referred by the police department or by the schools there is exponentially higher than places like Bridgeport or Hartford.

What's different in Waterbury?

What's happening in school districts where you are seeing high referral rates?

- So if I'm taking Waterbury and Bridgeport, for instance, Waterbury has SROs placed in their schools.

Whereas Bridgeport has what they call like a safety corridor.

So the SROs aren't placed in the schools, but they're within a certain distance that if they are needed at the schools, they can get there within, I think it's three minutes.

So not having the SROs directly in the schools does impact how many students are being arrested.

So in Waterbury sometimes, the SROs might get called to an incident that it might be a behavioral incident.

That's not a criminal incident that then later turns into one and they end up getting arrested.

- What was it like having SROs in your schools?

- That's a negative placement of a person.

You want positive things.

So if I see you in the community and doing stuff with us, or you're here actually helping us, then that's different than kind of policing the ground of the school.

Some people at my school actually feel like some can't defend for themselves 'cause they're there actually.

Because some are like 18 and be like, oh, I can't do this.

'Cause then, I'm gonna get arrested.

I can't even budge, even trying to put up a fight with anyone and trying to act out, 'cause then I'm gonna get arrested and I can't do it.

I'm 18.

Like some are actually scared of being arrested.

And I feel like that's like, you shouldn't feel that way in school.

You're still in high school.

- One of the things that at the state capital that keeps being brought up of why some feel youth crime is out of control is that they feel like there's no consequences.

What's your reaction to that, Latoya?

- I think that we have to change how we're using language.

I often ask one of my roles in CCA is I'm the restorative justice coordinator.

And I get to go into different juvenile facilities, in DCF facilities and work with staff around being restorative with youth.

And one of my initial questions with folks who work with young people is why is it important for you to see them punished?

Why is it important for you to see them have a consequence?

Rather than them learning and understanding accountability.

Taking a restorative approach allows the youth to take accountability for their actions, but also have a sense of redemption.

That I made a mistake that I can come back from that, which is what we all as human beings want anyway.

And I think it also gives them more stake in their community because when they're in their communities, they're now thinking long term about the impact of how they're being, how they're moving.

- Jaqueline and Luna, I'm curious if you think the current system is helping people in your communities.

- No.

- Find restoration.

- No.

- No.

- And I don't know about Luna, but I think that it's such a terrible, nobody wants to feel like they can't come back from something.

Everybody makes, I'm not even gonna say mistakes.

Like as a child, they're mistakes, but more so bad decisions.

As an adult, you learn that there are bad decisions and there are, maybe not consequence.

Something is gonna happen good or bad after whatever you do.

And as a kid, you don't know.

You're thinking short term, I want this now and giving them the tool to be like, hey, but if you get this now, what are you gonna get later?

- Do you feel like the programming is available to help people get on the right path in your community?

- I wish we had more people to tell us that you can't do this.

But an actual official group that you have to take to learn from your mistakes.

'Cause it's always good to learn from your mistakes 'cause we're still young.

And being punished for what we did, knowing that we're still young.

And some of us feel like we can't come back from what we did and we were only young.

But then, they just give up on theirself and then they keep doing it.

And now what?

You're gonna be deeper into it.

And you could have just learned when you did it the first time.

- Well thank you, everyone.

- Thank you.

- For talking with us today.

I appreciate it.

- While some worry the recent changes to the juvenile justice system will lead to more youth being needlessly intertwined into the juvenile justice system, others say something needed to change.

While these laws are just going into effect, the impact will have on the children of our state remains to be seen.

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