Governor, Lawmakers, Courts To Push for Juvenile Justice Reforms

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, legislative leaders and judges from across the state announced on Monday, Dec. 16, the creation of a task force that will recommend reforms for the commonwealth’s juvenile justice system.

Monday’s news conference in the state capitol came about six weeks after Wolf’s Council on Reform identified juvenile justice as a system in need of overhaul. Studies indicate that as many as nine in 10 children in the juvenile justice system were exposed to a traumatic event in their young lives, the governor said, with about a third meeting criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Improving our juvenile justice system can have an enormous positive impact on our commonwealth by preventing young Pennsylvanians from ever entering our state prison system, and that's a very good thing,” Wolf said.

Each of the three branches of state government will appoint members to the task force within the next 30 days. That panel will deliver its recommendations by Nov. 30, 2020.

The task force will receive help from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Crime and Justice Institute. In a study last year, Pew noted that Pennsylvania held 999 youth for status offenses, which include underage drinking and truancy, or committing technical violations of their sentence, like missing a probation meeting or not completing a treatment program.

Only California and Texas detained more youth, and Pennsylvania’s percentage of children confined for those matters, 36 percent, ranked fifth nationally.

State lawmakers are already working on reforms to the criminal justice system. The Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which has already cleared the Senate, passed the House Judiciary Committee last week.

“Common sense tells us that as we look at our criminal justice system, we must also look upstream to our juvenile justice system,” said House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler. “By assessing evidence about what works to prevent re-offending, we can direct young people who may otherwise end up off in our adult jails and prisons at a great taxpayer expense. By intervening early, we can save money and improve lives.”

Judge Kim Berkeley Clark, chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission, said that more needs to be done and that it will require input from both political parties in the state.