Signs of Intelligent Life?

-I took this article by the Chronicle’s Bill Murphy to be a sign of intelligent life on the Commissioners Court under new County Judge Ed Emmett:

“Harris County will try to reduce overcrowding at its juvenile detention facilities by jailing only youths who pose a danger or have been accused of serious, violent crimes, officials announced Friday.

The announcement comes three months after Commissioners Court discussed whether to ask voters to spend $76 million to renovate the former county jail and turn it into juvenile detention space.

Instead, officials have turned to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, based in Baltimore, Md., which has given the county a $300,000 grant to develop ways to cut its juvenile detention population.

"There are all sorts of reasons that kids are in detention that don't have anything to do with public safety," said Bart Lubow, director of the foundation's program for high-risk youth. "They don't like kids' attitudes or feel that they don't have an alternative."

The foundation kicked off a study of Harris County's juvenile detention system Friday. During the next three to five years, foundation analysts and researchers will work with juvenile court judges, prosecutors and the Juvenile Probation Department to reduce the number of youth detainees without putting the public at risk.The foundation has worked on reducing juvenile detainees in 85 communities since 1992. Dallas joined the program last year.

Cook County in Illinois has been one of the foundation's success stories and serves as one of four learning labs for counties starting the program.Cook County's juvenile detainee population averaged 710 in 1996. That number was reduced to 426 in 2006, after officials there began following the foundation's recommendations.

"The Casey Foundation is very creative, and that's why I'm interested in seeing what they've put together in other jurisdictions," said Harvey Hetzel, executive director of the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department.The foundation has met moderate to high success in most places, Lubow said. Its efforts did not succeed in New York City and Milwaukee because officials in those cities lacked "the political will" to make the necessary changes and administrators lacked "the acumen" to lead the effort, he said.

The foundation will help the county develop a method of assessing which youths could pose a danger if released.Lubow said many youths will have a better chance at turning their lives around if they are not held with juveniles who have committed serious crimes.

The county could lessen its juvenile detainee population by greatly expanding an electronic monitoring program, creating late afternoon-evening reporting centers for wayward youths and hiring home detention officers who would work with youths, Lubow said.

"We would like to come up with more creative ways of dealing with juveniles," said County Judge Ed Emmett, who chairs the county's juvenile probation board.Hetzel said he does not expect Harris County to get as dramatic results as Cook County because his department has been trying to reduce its number of detainees for several years."We'd be successful if we cut our detention by 20 percent, 25 percent," he said.

Lubow said Harris County should perform a similar analysis of its adult jail overcrowding problem.

The county will ask voters in November to approve a $245 million, 2,500-bed adult jail, processing and evaluation center and medical facility. Bonds would provide $195 million, the city would contribute $32 million and the county would raise the remaining $18 million through other means.”

-This is a real breath of fresh air following news last year that juveniles in state detention centers were being raped and abused by staff, particularly in light of reports about teens caught up in the justice system by “zero tolerance” policies that criminalize common teen misbehavior.

Voter rejection of that November bond issue could give legislators the necessary cover to reconsider our costly and counterproductive drug war. This would be a giant step for pandering officials that campaign like they want to institute Sharia or Hammurabis Code.