State preps for expansion of youth justice system

The state is preparing to implement a law making some young adults eligible to be treated as youths, rather than adults, in court.

Under a new law passed by the Legislature earlier this year, criminal defendants up to age 21 who are not charged with certain serious crimes, will be eligible to apply for youth offender status — a rehabilitation-focused track previously only available to defendants under age 18.

A new report from members of the Department for Children and Families and the Department of Corrections, presented to the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee this week, spells out the changes that they say must be made before the law can be fully implemented. The expansion of the youthful offender status is slated to take effect in July 2018.

Youth offenders’ cases play out in family court, rather than criminal court. They work with both a DCF social worker and a corrections officer. If they complete their programming, their criminal record is wiped clean and their family court record is sealed.

The expansion of the program’s eligibility was part of a large piece of legislation that passed earlier this year that revised how young people are treated in the criminal justice system.

In a legislative session dominated by the prospect of marijuana legalization, the technical and complex juvenile justice bill flew under the radar. But observers have hailed the law, Act 153, as an overdue step to bring Vermont’s juvenile justice system up to date, and a move towards making progressive changes in how courts treat young people.

Vermont’s new law rolls out a series of changes to the system over the next several years. It changed statute so that 16 and 17 year olds cited for most crimes will go first to family court, rather than starting their case in criminal court as was previously done. Also, young people under age 25 who are sentenced to prison time must be held separately from the adult population in the prison.

The report presented to lawmakers on the panel Tuesday spelled out a number of changes that people involved in the juvenile justice system, including members of the DOC and DCF, recommend before the change can take effect in 2018.

Several existing laws need to be clarified in order to accommodate youthful offenders, according to the report, including those on motor vehicle offenses and the sex offender registry.

The report’s authors also raised issues about accessibility of court records, which are sealed in cases involving youth. The report urges legislators to consider changing the statute so that information could be shared among certain parties to better track how successful the system for young people is.

In a report presented to the Justice Oversight committee, DCF and DOC said that after studying the issue, both are supportive of the change to the status laid out in the new law.

But the departments stopped short of endorsing the a proposal to automatically give youthful offender status to all defendants under age 21, save those accused of most serious crimes.

The report also said more research needs to be done to fully understand the resources that would be necessary to accommodate that.

Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the juvenile justice bill could have a long-lasting impact.

“Of all the things that the judiciary committee has done in the last two years, this is probably one of the most important bills,” Sears said.

Sears said he hopes that by the end of the next biennium, in 2018, the system is ready for the shift to the youth offender system.

“They’re not old enough to drink, but they’re old enough for this, that, and the other thing,” Sears said.

Vermont is one of a number of states revisiting how the criminal justice system addresses young people.

According to Josh Weber, a specialist in youth justice at the Council of State Governments Justice Center, more states have been rethinking how the criminal justice system treats young adults, understanding that people in their late teens and early twenties are at a different level of developmental maturity than adults.

Weber addressed the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee by phone Tuesday. States are also reconsidering approaches to confinement and supervised release of young offenders, and are shifting toward an approach that is more trauma-informed, he said.

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