The Pods of Elmore County: A Glimpse into the Rhetoric Behind the
Juvenile Crime Bill
by Jason Ziedenberg & Vincent Schiraldi
September 29th, 1997
Introduction
The authors of recent federal juvenile
justice legislation have argued that their bill will give flexibility
to states in general, and rural counties in particular, to design
policies to curb violent youth crime. New mandates to expand juvenile
detention beds, and perilous changes to the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) that would make it easier to jail
children with adults are being driven by the belief that the current
rules are preventing police from locking up juvenile murderers, rapists
and predators. "It [the bill] will do one thing that we have to do, and
that is to increase bed space for violent juvenile offenders," says
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), co-sponsor of The Violent and Repeat
Juvenile Offender Act
1 Sen. Orrin Hatch, chair of Senate
Judiciary Committee, recently told CBS Evening News that "we think that
we have to have some flexibility so that these smaller towns can handle
these problems and not let the violent criminal go."
To support this view, Hatch and Sessions brought several law
enforcement officials from Alabama and other small states to testify
that the JJDPA's requirements to separate children from adults in jails
needs to be watered down. In all, only six law enforcement officials,
representing states that account for 16 percent of the population,
called on the Senate to ease the JJDPA restrictions against jailing
kids with adults.2 By contrast, 26 law enforcement and
corrections officials signed onto an advertisement run in The
Washington Times, urging Congress not to allow children and adults to
be co-mingled in jails.3
One study conducted around the time when it was still
permissible to incarcerate children with adults found that children
were eight times more likely to commit suicide when incarcerated with
adults, than if they were held in secure juvenile detention.4
Another more recent study which looked at what happens to kids when
they are transferred to adult jails for serious offenses found they are
5 times more likely to be raped, and 50 percent more likely to be
attacked with a weapon.5 In another series of studies, it
has been shown that juveniles who are incarcerated with adults are more
likely to reoffend than those who serve out their sentences in juvenile
centers.6
Nevertheless, Sheriff Edmund M. Sexton of Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
neatly summed up the testimony of the small group of rural law
enforcement officials who say the current JJDPA's emphasis on keeping
kids separate from adults is preventing them from curbing violent
crime: "For those hard core offenders, the local communities need to
have the flexibility to detain them in the local county jail until a
disposition of their case."7
Yet previous research shows that the majority of "hard core"
violent juvenile offenders reside in a handful of major urban
centers"not small rural counties.8 One in three juvenile
homicides in the entire country, for example, occur in just four
cities"Detroit, New York, Los Angles, and Chicago"far away from the
county seats in Alabama, Wyoming and Arizona where sheriffs have pled
their case for new legislation.9 By contrast, eighty-two percent of counties across the country experienced no juvenile arrests for homicides in 1994.10
With this in mind, the Justice Policy Institute set about to
find out if violent juvenile crime was a significant problem in places
where law enforcement officials like Sheriff Sexton said that,
"juvenile offenders are committing more violent crimes than ever
before, and they are committing them at younger ages."11
What we found is that if this bill is being driven to serve
those who said that there was a violent juvenile crime wave in their
communities, then it is attempting to fix a problem that does not
exist. The real story from Tuscaloosa County is that the overwhelming
number of youth offenses are non-violent and petty. In Elmore County,
Alabama, where the Sheriff testified that the JJDPA rules were
preventing him from opening a new series of juvenile "pods," we found
that the center is already open for business, and that it is likely
that the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants will be non-violent
offenders. In Casper, Wyoming where a city councilwoman testified that
the state desperately needs bed space to lock up violent youths with
adults, there were no juveniles arrested for murder, rape or robbery.
To juvenile justice experts, this is not much of a surprise,
as it has long been known that 93 percent of all juvenile arrests in
America are for non-violent offenses.12 The surprise is that
those who have complained most loudly about the violent juvenile crisis
in their counties have the least to worry about in terms of actual
arrests.
Methodology
Each year, for their Uniform Crime
Reports, the FBI asks law enforcement agencies throughout the country
to report how many arrests for "violent index offenses" "murders,
rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults"as well as non-violent
offenses, are made in their jurisdictions. For this report, we analyzed
the juvenile crime statistics gathered for the FBI's Uniform Crime
Reports by state agencies to find out the real story in Elmore County,
Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and select counties in Wyoming" places
which sent representatives to Congress over the past two years to
protest what they consider to be onerous federal provisions which
prevent them from jailing juveniles with adults.
The purpose of this research was to examine the real urgency for
respite from what those county officials claim are burdensome federal
rules to separate children from adults in jails, especially given the
documented impact of mixing those populations on juvenile suicides,
rapes and assaults, and reoffense rates.
The Pods of Elmore County, Alabama
On May 6th, 1997
Sheriff Bill Franklin of Elmore County, Alabama, testified before the
Senate Judiciary Committee to the need for the juvenile crime bill.
Sheriff Franklin is well-known in his home state for his proposal that
drug dealers should face capital punishment. He recently told a local
newspaper that, if he had his way, he would take the first drug dealer
convicted each month "and hang him--on the court house steps. After
about the third month after you hanged three drug dealers, I assure you
the drug dealers would say, 'I'm going to deal drugs, but I ain't going
to deal drugs in Elmore County'."
13
Sheriff Franklin complained that the JJDPA regulations, which
prohibit the incarceration of children alongside adult prisoners, were
inhibiting his ability to round up juvenile offenders.14 To
dramatize the point, Sheriff Franklin held up a diagram of his "Pods" "
a series of special juvenile holding cells attached to the county jail,
which were designed to incarcerate violent juvenile offenders. The
pods, he told, were empty, as he did not have the funds to meet the
"counterproductive" JJDPA rules against juvenile "sight and sound"
contact with adults, and could not afford to train separate staff for
the facility.15
Yet, according to Jane Autrey, who licenses juvenile detention
centers for Alabama's Department of Youth Services, Elmore County's
pods opened for business on August 28, 1997.16 She reports
that her department trained Sheriff Franklin's staff, and that 16 of a
total of 32 pods are now open for a three month trial period. "I don't
know why he would say that there is a problem," Autrey said.17
Furthermore, even if Elmore County did not have this new
short-term juvenile detention facility, this sleepy suburb of
Montgomery, Alabama is only 15 miles away from two facilties equiped to
hold juveniles, including the state capital's 52-bed youth detention
center. If these juvenile jails were full, there is another holding
facility that meets the JJDPA standards a little more then 30 miles
away, in Opelika.
But even if these facilities were near capacity, Elmore County
officials would not be too hard pressed to house juveniles arrested for
"violent index offenses" in Elmore County. In Sheriff Franklin's
jurisdiction, there were only three violent index arrests of juveniles
in 1996.18 Only two percent of all juvenile arrests in
Elmore County (see graph, below) were for violent crimes"a full five
percent lower than the national rate of seven percent.
In a state where counties are allegedly turning violent
juvenile offenders away for lack of bed-space, Sheriff Franklin
recently boasted to The Montgomery Advertiser that their jail would
only need average four juveniles a day to break even.19 "If we fill it up, it should be a source of revenue for the county," said one county commissioner.20
The facility costs $89,000 a year to run, and Elmore County officials
plan to charge $50 per day to house out of county youth in the facility.21
If the facility were filled with out of county children all the time"as
may be the case, due to the low number of violent index offenses in
Elmore"it could net the county huge profits.
While this may be beneficial to Elmore County residents, it is
hardly the foundation upon which federal legislation should be based.
In other words, Sheriff Franklin's Pods are a cash cow for Elmore
County, not the needed solution to a burgeoning crime wave.
The real story from Tuscaloosa County, Alabama.
Barely
a hundred miles away, in Tuscaloosa County, where the area sheriff said
he needed the power to lock up large numbers of violent juveniles in
adult jails, the violent crime wave is not much larger than in Elmore
County.
After you account for those youths 16 and over who are
automatically charged as adults for murder"and thus, can be jailed with
adults under current law"there were no juveniles arrested for homicide
in Sheriff Sexton's county in 1996.22 Just under 5% of
Tuscaloosa County's juvenile arrests were for violent index offenses.
Of the 41 violent index offenses committed by juveniles in Tuscaloosa
County, twenty-seven were robberies, two were arrested for rape, and
eleven, assault.23 Since detention facilities are only designed to hold
juveniles for the short periods between arrest and conviction, the
27-bed Tuscaloosa County Regional juvenile holding facility should have
no trouble housing Sheriff Sexton's 41 violent youth offenders.
The real problem is that the Tuscaloosa regional facility is
reportedly filled to capacity with non-violent offenders. The Sheriff,
along with the two local juvenile court judges, the juvenile court
referee, and local school officials, are currently prosecuting a
"zero-tolerance" policy with respect to various forms of school
misbehavior.24
Instead of suspension or expulsion, new rules in Tuscaloosa
allow school principals to petition juvenile judges to transfer youths
to the custody of the county, which then passes them along to the
sheriff to be incarcerated in the regional facility. The juvenile court
referee, in turn, is following the zero-tolerance policy by keeping
anyone charged with any drug offense or simple assault (e.g. fighting
in the school-yard) in the detention center until their case can be
heard.
In Tuscaloosa, that can take six to eight weeks. Kids are
reportedly being incarcerated in Sheriff Sexton's juvenile jail for
possession of drugs, or for fighting, for up to two months before their
case is heard.Gary Blume, a local lawyer who specializes in juvenile
justice, says that he recently represented one 13-year-old girl who
faced 6 to 8 weeks in the juvenile jail for possessing what a principal
thought was marijuana, but which turned out to be oregano.25
If the Tuscaloosa Sheriff were allowed to mix juveniles with adults,
then oregano possession could have turned into a two month jail
sentence"possibly with adult inmates.
Given the number of secure juvenile beds that are available in
Tuscaloosa County, the only reason why Sheriff Sexton should have a
"revolving door policy" for violent juvenile offenders is that he is
jailing too many youth for school misbehavior.26 Rather than
change the JJDPA rules to allow him to jail more kids with adults,
Tuscaloosa's Sheriff should clear the local juvenile facility of petty
delinquents, and refer them to community based programs, leaving secure
bed spaces for the few violent offenders in the county. Congress could
help by funding counties to establish rigorous community based programs
for youth, rather than jailing non-violent children with adults.
Juvenile Crime In Wyoming
Wyoming, a sparsely
populated state of 500,000 citizens, has been held out as another
example of where it is necessary to allow children to be jailed with
adults to curb violent crime. Carol Crump, a City Councilwoman from
Casper, Wyoming, testified that juvenile crime in her city had
increased 47 percent since 1993.
27 She explained that the
Natrona County jail, which serves Casper, frequently breaks the JJDPA
ban against jailing juveniles with adults. She called for a crime bill
that would make this condition permanent. "Mr. Chairman, this solution
addresses the problem of what to do with our violent juveniles on any
given Saturday night," Crump testified.
28
While Councilor Crump paints a picture of routine juvenile violence
in Casper, there were only 6 juveniles arrested for violent index
offenses in Natrona County in 1995, all of them were aggravated
assaults.29 There were no juvenile arrests for murder, rape,
or robbery in Casper. This is not surprising, when you consider that in
the entire of state of Wyoming, there were only 83 juvenile arrests for
violent index offenses in 1995.30 Measured against the total
number of juvenile arrests, this means that only one percent of all
youths arrested in Wyoming are arrested for violent index offenses. The
Division of Criminal Investigation, the state agency which files the
FBI's uniform crime report each year, warns against drawing the kinds
of conclusions that Councilwoman Crump made on behalf of Wyoming: given
the comparatively low volume of the index offenses, caution must be
used when interpreting 'percent change' figures...."31
To add substance to her testimony, Councilwoman Crump attached a
letter from Jeffrey M. Pfau, Chief of Police in the city of Gillette,
and President of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
Pfau argued that Wyoming was struggling with a juvenile crime problem.32 Yet even under Chief Pfau's watch, the city of Gillette only experienced two juvenile violent index arrests in 1995:33
Outside of two arrests for robbery, there were no arrests for murder,
rape or aggravated assault by juveniles in Gillette in 1995.34
Wyoming is one of the only states that currently does not meet
JJDPA requirements forbidding the jailing of kids alongside adults.
Exemptions were granted to Wyoming as late as 1996, which allowed law
enforcement officials to incarcerate youth with adults in jail for
short periods of time. In fact, Chief Pfau's letter called for a
continuation of that very specific Wyoming exemption"not for the
complete gutting of the JJDPA to serve the less than 100 violent
juvenile offenders his state deals with each year.
Conclusions
According to Sen. Orrin Hatch, "people
are expecting us to do something about these violent teenagers. We've
got to move on this."
35 Yet, crime statistics from those
counties where law enforcement officials are clamoring for the power to
jail kids with adults show no pressing reason to "move" on jailing
juveniles with adults. The real story from Casper and Gillette Wyoming,
and Elmore County and Tuscaloosa, Alabama is that the number of violent
index offenses committed by juveniles can be contained with resources
law enforcement already have at their disposal. Some tinkering may be
attempted to fine tune the system, but there is no reason for the
wholesale gutting of a juvenile justice act which has provided some
minimal level of protection and security for juveniles. Currently, out
of the some 100,000 juveniles in secure detention around the country,
the death rate for incarcerated kids is well beneath one percent, and
the suicide rate is extremely low.
36
It did not always use to been that way. Sen. Birch Bayh (D-IN), who
presided over the Judiciary Committee in 1973 which first authorized
the requirement to separate juveniles from adults in jails, made clear
at the time why the Senate passed the JJDPA: "We have conducted
numerous hearings on the juvenile justice system in this country, and
we have learned all too well that children in trouble rarely receive
the kind of help they need. Instead, they are locked up in large,
antiquated institutions where they are frequently beaten, neglected and
homosexually assaulted."37 If we ignore these facts, and the
recent history which has led to at least some minimum standard of
treatment of youth offenders, we ought to have a better reason for
doing so than prosecuting a war against a "violent juvenile crime" wave
where it does not exist.
The authors would like to thank Professor Meda
Chesney-Lind for her assistance with this report, and acknowledge and
thank Heather Lynn Kane and Natasha Harvin for their research
assistance.
This research is funded in part by a grant from The California Wellness Foundation
(TCWF). Created in 1992 as a private and independent foundation, TCWF's
mission is to improve the health of the people of California through
proactive support of health promotion and disease prevention programs.
This study was funded by the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture and the Public Welfare Foundation.
Endnotes
1 The Congressional Record, Senate, June 18, 1997
2 On April 16, and May 5-6, the Senate Sub-Committee on Youth on
Violence heard testimony favoring the watering down of the JJDPA from
law enforcement officials and judges representing Virginia, Alabama,
Arizona and Wyoming.
3 Ad placed by The Coalition to Prevent Juvenile Crime, The Washington Times, July 11, 1997.
4 Flaherty, Michael G. "An assessment of the national incidences
of juvenile suicide in adult jails, lockups and juvenile detention
centers." The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1980.
5 Fagan, Jeffrey, Martin Forst and T. Scott Vivona. "Youth in
Prison and Training Schools: Perceptions and Consequences of the
Treatment-Custody Dichotomy," Juvenile and Family Court Journal, No. 2,
1989.
6 Bishop, Donna M. et al. "The Transfer of Juveniles to
Criminal Court: Does it make a difference?," Crime and Delinquency,
Vol. 42, No. 2, April 1996.
7 Testimony of Sheriff Edmund M. Sexton, before the
Subcommittee on Youth Violence of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Wednesday, April 16, 1997.
8 Lotke, Eric and Vincent Schiraldi. "An Analysis of Juvenile
Homicides: Where they occur and the effectiveness of adult court
interventions." A joint study of The National Center on Institutions
and Alternatives and The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, July,
1996.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Sheriff Edmund Sexton, The Subcommittee on Youth Violence, April 16, 1997.
12 Snyder, Howard N., Sickmund, Melissa, and Poe-Yamagata,
Eileen. (1996) Juvenile offenders and victims: 1996 update on violence.
Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention.
13 Lackeos, Nick. "Sheriff Defends Drug Stand." The Montgomery Advertiser, August 21, 1997.
15 Ibid.
16 Personal interview with Jane Autrey, Alabama Department of Youth Services, August 28, 1997.
17 Ibid.
18 The Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center, Montgomery,
Alabama (1996), Crime in Alabama, 1996. Some of the following data,
which reveals the breakdown of how many "violent index offenses" were
committed by juveniles, was prepared for the Justice Policy Institute
by staff with the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center.
19 Sawyer, Steve. "Youth Detention Center Set to Open." The Montgomery Advertiser, July 15, 1997.
20 Ibid.
21 Sawyer, Steve. "Juvenile Center May Turn Profit." The Montgomery Advertiser, June 21, 1997.
22 The Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center, (1996), Crime in Alabama, 1996.
23 Ibid.
24 Personal interview with Gary Blume, September 8, 1997.
25 Ibid.
26 Sheriff Edmund Sexton, The Subcommittee on Youth Violence, April 16, 1997.
27 Testimony of Carol Crump, before the Subcommittee on Youth
Violence of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wednesday, May 6, 1997.
28 Ibid.
29 Attorney General, Division of Criminal Investigation, Cheyenne, Wyoming (1995). Crime in Wyoming, 1995., p. 46.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., p. 21.
32 Correspondence from Jeffrey M. Pfau, Chief of Police, the
City of Gillette, March 7, 1996, attached to Carol Crumps testimony
before the Subcommittee on Youth Violence of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Wednesday, May 6, 1997.
33 Attorney General, Division of Criminal Investigation, Cheyenne, Wyoming (1995). Crime in Wyoming, 1995, p. 32.
34 Ibid.
35 "New Juvenile Crime Bill," in The Bulletin Front-runner, July 14, 1997.
36 Camp, George M. and Camille Graham Camp. ?The Corrections
Yearbook: Juvenile Corrections, 1995,? The Criminal Justice Institute,
South Salem, New York, 1995.
37 Testimony before the Senate Subcommittee to investigate
juvenile delinquency, of the committee on the judiciary, Washington,
DC., March 26, 1973
Suggested citation format for this report: Schiraldi, Vincent and Ziedenberg, Jason. (1997)
The Pods of Elmore County: A Glimpse Into the Rhetoric Behind the Juvenile Crime Bill. Washington DC: The Justice Policy Institute.