To Cut Juvenile Crime, Long Island Law Enforcement Leaders Urge McCarthy to Advance a Strong Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) Bill

Jan 15th 2008

Garden City, NY, January 15--Long Island law enforcement leaders today urged Rep. Carolyn McCarthy to advance a strong Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) reauthorization bill to cut crime.

Hempstead Village Police Chief Joseph Wing, Freeport Police Chief Michael Woodward and Nassau County Police Department Inspector Matthew Simeone met with McCarthy in her district office. The law enforcement leaders are members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, a nonprofit anti-crime organization.

McCarthy is Chair of the Education and Labor subcommittee in charge of JJDPA reauthorization this year. Created in 1974, the JJDPA provides the major source of federal funding to improve states' juvenile justice systems.

In order to cut repeat juvenile crime, Wing said improvements must be made to the reauthorization bill. He pointed to New York's high juvenile recidivism rate-75 percent of juvenile delinquents are re-arrested within three years-as evidence that the current system is failing our young people and endangering our communities.

"It's clear that our current system is putting juveniles on a path to becoming career criminals. It's expensive, it's not working, and it's time to change," Simeone said.

Woodward said the reauthorization bill must increase funding levels and prioritize funding for evidence-based approaches.

Evidence-based interventions, such as the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) program, have been shown to cut rates of re-arrest for delinquent juveniles in half. Unfortunately, most states and communities are not yet able to fund these evidence-based approaches.

"When we know there are programs proven to dramatically reduce repeat juvenile crime, it's just common sense to invest in them," Woodward said, pointing out that there are currently only 30 MTFC beds in the Bronx and 20 MTFC beds upstate.

He urged McCarthy to include $200 million each in funding for Title II intervention grants and Title V prevention grants in the JJDPA reauthorization bill.

Wing asked McCarthy to add the Education Begins at Home Act (EBAH) as a title to the JJDPA reauthorization bill. EBAH is a bipartisan bill that would authorize $500 million in grants to states over three years to expand and improve voluntary home visiting programs. McCarthy is already a cosponsor of the bill.

These programs send trained professionals into the homes of at-risk parents who want assistance. One study of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), a model home visiting program, found that the children whose mothers participated in the program had nearly 60 percent fewer arrests than the children of mothers who did not receive visits.

"The great challenge of policing is to identify that mix of proven prevention and enforcement strategies and tactics that work to make our communities safer," Wing said. "By helping kids get the right start in life, home visiting programs have been proven effective at reducing later crime."

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York is a bipartisan, nonprofit, anti-crime organization led by more than 300 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, and victims of violence. Its mission is to take a critical look at the research about what really works to keep kids from becoming criminals. www.fightcrime.org/ny.