Dive Brief:
- On Wednesday, four senators — Bob Casey (D-PA), Gary Peters (D-MI), David Vitter (R-LA), and James Inhofe (R-OK) — introduced a bill that would facilitate district efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency.
- The Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education Act (shortened to the Youth PROMISE Act) gives districts funding to track the effectiveness of programs intended to keep kids out of prison.
- It would also establish councils of parents, students, teachers, law enforcement officers, and community members to devise and implement programs for at-risk youth.
Dive Insight:
The news comes in the wake of a speech President Barack Obama gave at the annual NAACP conference, where he called for reform to the criminal justice system. "In too many cases, our criminal justice system ends up being a pipeline from underfunded, inadequate schools to overcrowded jails,” he said.
A 2008 Pennsylvania study found that communities that invested in prevention programs for at-risk youth could actually save money that would otherwise go to more extreme interventions and jailing.
"I think taxpayers are realizing the limitations of our corrections system," Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told the Huffington Post. "Ask any governor in any state, and they'll tell you one of their biggest challenges is paying for corrections. The idea that we can build our way out of this crisis [by building prisons] just doesn't work.”
A group of House representatives has formed a caucus to push criminal justice reforms and another Senate bill is in the pike, aiming to overhaul sentencing laws.
