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In 2007, NCYL began working to reduce the number of children in Arkansas's juvenile justice system and to better fund community-based programs.
Arkansas Times, Aug. 19, 2010
Lost in the daily reports on the use of state vehicles by elected officials and employees in the early days of August was some good news about Arkansas's long-plagued juvenile justice system.
Until recently, the vast majority of youth incarcerated in Arkansas's juvenile justice system were non-violent offenders, and in at least one facility, Alexander Juvenile Correctional Facility, youth were being overmedicated, unnecessarily put in physical restrains, and denied access to adequate education and special education. NCYL began working with the Disability Rights Center (DRC) in early 2007 to push for reform. In March 2007, the state's legislature passed Senate Resolution 31, which called on agencies to develop a plan to reduce the state's dependence on incarceration and improve access to community services and treatment for youth, such as drug treatment and family therapy.
In January 2008, NCYL and Arkansas’s Division of Youth Services (DYS) became partners in an effort to improve the system, releasing a framework for reform in May. Among the report's recommendations were calls for increased coordination between intake, placement, and release practices, and more standardized risks and needs assessments to be used by juvenile courts.
Since then, DYS has decreased the number of youth incarcerated for misdemeanors, from 42 percent of the DYS population in 2007 to 32 percent in early 2009. DYS has also significantly reduced the backlog of youth adjudicated delinquent and held for lengthy periods in county detention awaiting placement. On any given day in 2007, about 50 youth were inappropriately detained, with the length of incarceration for girls being twice as long as for boys. Under strong agency leadership, DYS now sends assessment teams to detention facilities to assess youths' needs, so they may be placed or returned to the community with appropriate supports and services. These mobile assessment teams have successfully reduced the use of detention for youth waiting for more appropriate placements or to return home with the necessary services. The Alexander Facility has likewise seen improvements, with a reduced population and more focus on treatment than punishment.
Updated April 16, 2011
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