Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1169

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, soon Senator Whitehouse and I will be offering a unanimous consent request. It is in regard to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act. It has an amendment at the desk. I introduced this measure last April with Senator Whitehouse, and it has three main goals.

First, this measure would extend a federal law, known as the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, for 5 more years. The centerpiece of this 1974 law, which Congress last extended in 2002, is its core protections for youth.

There are four core protections. The first calls for States to avoid detaining youth for low-level status offenses. The second requires that juveniles be kept out of adult facilities, except in rare instances. The third ensures that juveniles will be kept separated from adult inmates whenever they are housed in adult facilities. The fourth calls for reducing disproportionate minority contact in State juvenile justice systems. States adhering to these four requirements receive yearly formula grants to support their juvenile justice systems.

Second, this legislation would make important updates to existing law in order to ensure that juvenile justice programs will yield the best possible estimates. The authorization for these programs expired in 2007, but they continue to receive appropriations. Nearly 14 years have elapsed since the last reauthorization, and the programs are long overdue for an update.

Third, this bill would promote greater accountability in government spending. The Judiciary Committee that I chair heard from multiple whistleblowers that reforms are urgently needed to restore the integrity of formula grant programs that are the centerpiece of our current juvenile justice law. The Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention administers this formula grant program.

This grant program would be continued for 5 more years under this bill, but the Justice Department would have to do much more oversight if this bill is enacted. This bill also calls for evidence-based programs to be accorded priority in funding. The goal is to ensure that scarce Federal resources for juvenile justice will be devoted mostly to the programs that research shows have the greatest merits and will yield the best results for these young people.

For years and years, I have been reading inspector general reports that disclose shortcomings within the Justice Department, under both Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents. Money is not being spent according to congressional intent, and it has not yielded the results we should be getting. That's why we want evidence-based programs to be accorded priority in funding.

A coalition of over 100 nonprofit organizations, led by the Campaign for Youth Justice and the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, worked closely with us on this bill's development. Others that have endorsed this measure include Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, Boys Town, Rights4Girls, the National Criminal Justice Association, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and the National District Attorneys Association. Senator Whitehouse and I are very grateful for their support.

I also take this opportunity to thank our 15 cosponsors, who include not only numerous Judiciary Committee members but people off the committee, such as Senators Blunt, Rubio, Ernst, and other non- committee members. This bill is a truly bipartisan effort, and many Senators contributed provisions to strengthen this bill since we introduced it last April.

There are a few provisions of the bill that I especially want to highlight. First, as already mentioned, this bill calls for continued congressional support of existing grant programs that serve at-risk youth. It also incorporates new language, championed by the organization called Rights4Girls, which emphasizes Congress's support for efforts to reduce delinquency among girls. Experts tell us that many girls in the juvenile justice system today have experienced violence, trauma, and poverty.

Second, at the urging of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, this bill gives States 3 years to phase out the detention of children who have committed so-called status offenses. Status offenses are those that are low-level offenses, such as running away from home, underage tobacco use, curfew violations, or truancy, which wouldn't be crimes if committed by an adult and which would never result in an adult being jailed.

Most status offenders are boys, with one exception. Girls account for about 60 percent of the runaway cases. Many of these girls and boys come from broken homes, and many have experienced trauma or mental health issues in childhood. Research shows that detention tends to make mentally ill status offenders worse. Because some detention facilities are crowded, violent, or chaotic, they can be very dangerous places for the low-risk offender. It is very expensive to lock up status offenders who don't pose a public safety risk. Finally, experts say that the status offenders learn negative behavior from high-risk offenders in detention, which greatly increases their risks of reoffending. Researchers call this peer deviancy training.

Third, the bill incorporates new provisions designed to rehabilitate and protect juveniles while they are in custody. It encourages screenings of boys and girls who may be exploited by human traffickers, as well as those with trauma, mental health, or substance abuse issues. It includes language, authored by Senators Cornyn and Schumer, which would end the shackling of pregnant girls in detention. It calls for greater data collection, including reports on the use of isolation on juveniles in State or local detention facilities, and it includes language calling for States to ensure that juveniles will continue their education while in detention.

The measure we are seeking to pass today also includes a minor amendment at the request of Senator Murkowski to ensure that the bill's definition of the phrase ``Indian tribes'' is the same as existing law. We also have added several new provisions to meet the better needs of tribal youth, who are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. They include a requirement that the GAO report back to Congress on ways to improve prevention and treatment services, as well as provisions encouraging States to notify Indian tribes when tribal youth come into contact with their juvenile justice systems.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work so closely in such a bipartisan manner with Senator Whitehouse, who I hope will speak shortly on these key reform provisions. I am pleased that we have revisited the authorization statute for some vitally important juvenile justice programs--a statute which is long overdue for an update to reflect the latest scientific research on what works with at-risk adolescents.

At this point, would the Presiding Officer recognize Senator Whitehouse under the rules.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this is the opportunity we have been waiting for. I hope it is not objected to. If it is, we will have to take that into consideration and just hold the bill in the Senate.

325, which is S. 1169; further, that the Grassley substitute amendment be agreed to; that the committee-reported substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time; and that the Senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended, with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I respect the Senator from Arkansas. In the short time he has been in the Senate, he has been an outstanding leader on very important issues. He is a good Senator. I have watched him over the period of time he has been in the Senate, and I think this is the first time I felt he was wrong. But he has his rights.

Juvenile judges are the ones who originally requested that Congress include a valid court order, or ``VCO,'' exception in the Federal juvenile justice statute, and they now are asking us to repeal it. We accorded great weight to the opinion of the National Council of Family and Juvenile Court Judges because their members are the ones who invoke this exception.

As further noted this week by Elizabeth Pyke of the National Criminal Justice Association: ``No one on the state government side is arguing to keep the VCO. . . . All agree that the VCO is the wrong tool to get a child's attention. Holding them in detention for a status offense is no longer considered the best practice for scaring a kid into going straight . . . So parsing the language to allow judges to continue to use the VCO for punishment doesn't really make sense. And, again, no one in the states has argued for that.''

Detaining status offenders is not good public policy. We don't support a further language change because locking up these adolescents will make them worse, expose them to violent offenders who have committed serious crimes, and increase the likelihood they will become serious offenders themselves.

Remember that we are talking about juveniles who have committed infractions that would not be crimes if committed by adults. Curfew violations. Truancy. Underage tobacco use.

Status offenders often come from broken homes or homes with family conflicts. Many have had traumatic childhoods or suffer from mental health issues.

Strikingly, girls are 16 percent of the detained population but comprise 40 percent of status offenders. In the case of girls, the root cause for commission of a status offense may be severe forms of child abuse, including child sex trafficking.

In truancy cases, placing a status offender in detention only ensures that the juvenile will miss even more school without ever resolving the issue motivating the truancy. Even a brief time in detention may make it harder for the child to keep up with school work. Yet truancy is one of the status offenses that frequently results in a status offender's detention in Arkansas. We need to resolve the issues that lead these children to skip school so that they can succeed.

Judges have more effective and less costly tools at their disposal to ensure these juveniles' accountability. For example, they can suspend their driver's license; impose fines; send the juvenile to live with another family; order the juvenile into counseling. Judges also may ask parents to undergo counseling or take parenting classes.

Finally, as already noted, locking up status offenders costs the taxpayers a lot of money, even though these juveniles typically don't pose a public safety risk. In Arkansas, housing a child in detention costs hundreds of dollars per day. Community-based programs cost a lot less, but they ensure the judge receives periodic status updates and enable the judge to increase sanctions if the child remains unstable.

Hon. Charles Grassley, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Senators Grassley and Whitehouse: We are pleased to support S. 1169, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act (JJDPA) of 2015. Members of the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) include the state, territorial and tribal chief executive officers of criminal justice agencies charged with managing federal, state, and tribal justice assistance resources. About half of these administer the programs authorized by the JJDPA.

NCJA members applaud the goals of S. 1169 to preserve and strengthen the prevention, youth development and rehabilitation purposes of the JJDPA, and are committed to achieving the reforms envisioned by the bill. In particular, the bill focuses on employing evidence-based and promising practices to promote alternatives to detention and provide for the diversion from, and the safe and effective treatment for, youth in confinement. It also would further the progress we have made as a nation in keeping youth out of contact with adult offenders, from the time of arrest through confinement.

The promise of the JJDPA is federal support for innovative state approaches to reforming the juvenile justice system and improving the treatment of juveniles under the state's care. S. 1169 will add to states' responsibilities by substantially expanding the activities under the core requirements, increasing data collection, and potentially requiring states to establish new facilities to house youthful offenders and increase the number of facilities states are required to monitor. Yet, since the last reauthorization in 2002, funding for JJDPA programs has dropped by more than 60 percent. This means that the resources available to states for juvenile delinquency programming and compliance with the core requirements are substantially dropping at a time when the requirements on states are substantially increasing.

It is for this reason that NCJA members appreciate the flexibility and spirit of partnership embedded in the bill which will help all states reach a common standard of protection and service for children in the juvenile justice system even when resources are scarce.

NCJA members also believe the bill will help continue to rebuild the partnership between OJJDP and the state agencies responsible for carrying out the purposes of the Act. The bill includes new training and technical assistance opportunities for state agency administrators, offers a new opportunity for state agencies to partner with OJJDP in research and the sharing of best practices, and holds the promise of improving transparency.

We are effusive in our praise and thanks for Evelyn Fortier and Lara Quint. Throughout the bill development process, Evelyn and Lara have been thoughtful, professional, welcoming, patient, collaborative, and kind. They have listened to our concerns and worked hard to craft language that supports the role of the state administering agencies while keeping pressure on the states to strengthen our juvenile justice systems.

Thank you for your leadership, for your commitment to improving the outcomes for youth, and for supporting state efforts to prevent and reduce juvenile crime. Sincerely, Jeanne Smith, President. ____ Act 4 Juvenile Justice, Washington, DC, January 25, 2016. Hon. Chuck Grassley, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Grassley and Senator Whitehouse: We, the undersigned--representing more than 200 national, state, and local organizations and hundreds of thousands of constituents--thank you for your leadership in sponsoring S. 1169, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2015. The bill strengthens and updates the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), which has provided States and localities with federal standards and supports for improving juvenile justice and delinquency prevention practices and contributed to safeguards for youth, families and communities for more than 40 years, and we are grateful that you have made it a priority this Congress.

Despite a continuing decline in youth crime and delinquency, more than 60,000 young people are held in detention centers awaiting trial or confined by the courts in juvenile facilities in the U.S. For these confined youth, and the many more kids at-risk of involvement in the justice system, the JJDPA and programs it supports are critical. Youth who are locked up are separated from their families, and many witness violence. These youth struggle when they get out, trying to complete high school, get jobs, housing, or go to college. Aside from the human toll, the financial costs of maintaining large secure facilities have also made it vital to rethink juvenile justice in every community.

Premised on research-based understandings of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, S. 1169 reaffirms a national commitment to the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system; one that supports developmentally appropriate practices that treat as many youth as possible in their communities. It advances important improvements to the JJDPA, its core requirements and its central purposes, provides enhanced safeguards for youth in the system, increases community safety, and ensures progress toward racial fairness.

Since the last JJDPA reauthorization was approved in 2002, there have been many developments in the field of juvenile justice that significantly impact practitioners' work. S. 1169 recognizes and addresses many of these developments in several key ways. Specifically, we are pleased that the bill:

1. Strengthens the Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders (DSO) core requirement by calling on states to phase-out use of the Valid Court Order Exception that currently causes non-offending youth/status offenders to be locked up.

2. Extends the adult Jail Removal and Sight and Sound Separation core requirements to apply to juveniles held pretrial, whether charged in juvenile or adult court.

3. Gives States and localities clear direction on the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) protection to plan and implement approaches to ensure fairness and reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and to set measurable objectives for reduction of disparities in the system.

4. Encourages States to eliminate dangerous practices in confinement and to promote adoption of best practices and standards.

5. Recognizes the impact of exposure to violence and trauma on adolescent behavior and development.

6. Encourages investment in community-based alternatives to detention; encourages family engagement in design and delivery of treatment and services; improves screening, diversion, assessment, and treatment for mental health and substance abuse needs; allows for easier transfer of education credits for system-involved youth; and calls for a focus on the particular needs of girls either in the system or at risk of entering the justice system.

7. Promotes fairness by supporting State efforts to expand youth access to counsel and encouraging programs that inform youth of opportunities to seal or expunge juvenile records once they have gotten their lives back on track.

8. Reauthorizes the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant (JABG) program which helps states and localities reduce juvenile offending by providing judges and other juvenile justice officials with a range of age/developmentally- appropriate options to both hold youth accountable and get them back on track so they are less likely to reoffend.

9. Encourages transparency, timeliness, public notice, and communication on the part of OJJDP, its agents and the States.

10. Increases accountability to ensure effective use of resources, to provide greater oversight of grant programs, and to ensure state compliance with federal standards.

Given the significant gains reflected in S. 1169, we are pleased to endorse the bill and look forward to continuing to work with you and your colleagues toward final passage in the 114th Congress. ____ Human Rights Project for Girls, Washington, DC, January 30, 2016. Hon. Chuck Grassley, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Grassley: Rights4Girls is a human rights organization focused on gender-based violence against young women and girls here in the U.S. We write to thank you for your leadership and commitment to our youth in sponsoring the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act (JJDPA) this Congress. We believe this bill strengthens the existing law by providing critical updates needed to protect youth, families, and communities.

We write to express our support for the JJDPA, which has not been reauthorized in over a decade. Despite an overall decline in youth crime and delinquency, more than 60,000 children are held in detention centers across the United States. We also know that girls are now the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population, requiring a more gender-responsive lens when looking at issues related to delinquency and justice-involvement. The research shows that the vast majority of girls in the justice system enter with extensive histories of sexual and physical abuse. Nationally, over 70% of girls in the justice system report histories of sexual and physical violence, but in some states it can range anywhere from 80-93%. For youth and especially young girls in the system or at-risk of involvement in the system, the JJDPA and the improvements in this year's language are vital.

For example, we know that each year more than 1,000 American children are arrested for prostitution, despite not being old enough to consent to sex and despite the existence of federal laws that define them as victims of trafficking. The JJDPA protects child trafficking victims by providing for the screening of youth upon intake for child trafficking and promoting services and alternatives to detention for such victims. The JJDPA will also grant greater protection for pregnant girls behind bars by restricting the use of shackles. Because shackles can greatly increase the likelihood of falls, the JJDPA limits the use of restraints on pregnant girls in the system, which will better protect the life and health of both these young women as well as their unborn children. Another critical way in which the JJDPA will benefit young girls is in phasing out the Valid Court Order (VCO) exception. Since girls are disproportionately charged with and detained for status offenses, closing this loophole would particularly benefit girls--many of whom are arrested and detained using the VCO exception for offenses that are directly correlated with suffering abuse and trauma.

We are grateful for your commitment to this issue and to these youth. As a human rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of vulnerable young women and girls, we urge the Senate to swiftly take up and pass this critical piece of legislation. Sincerely, Rights4Girls, Washington, DC. ____ Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, Washington, DC, September 17, 2015.

To All Members of Congress: We are members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national organization of nearly 5,000 law enforcement leaders nationwide, including chiefs of police, sheriffs, prosecutors, and other law enforcement executives. We write to express our strong support for S. 1169, the bipartisan reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). This reauthorization supports proven programs that can prevent youths from engaging in criminal activity or rehabilitate youths starting to offend. These programs provide a critical support for law enforcement and an important investment in those young people. We urge your support for this important reauthorization.

Recidivism remains a serious problem, draining law enforcement resources and damaging public safety. Past studies have shown that if a youth 14 years old or younger becomes a second-time offender, their likelihood of future run-ins with law enforcement spikes to 77 percent; and nationwide, almost half of youths who come before juvenile court (40 percent) will come before the court at least one more time. More needs to be done to ensure that if a youth offends, their first contact with the justice system is also their last.

The bipartisan Senate bill to reauthorize JJDPA would provide federal support for evidence-based programs to combat youth recidivism. Many states have expanded the use of these intervention programs in recent years, and additional support through the JJDPA reauthorization would help states continue this work. Research has shown that effective community-based intervention programs for youths and their families can significantly reduce the likelihood that the youth will get into trouble again. By reasserting family and personal responsibility, and coaching parents and children in the skills they will need to change the youths' behaviors, juvenile offenders are much more likely to engage in more pro-social behavior and avoid future run-ins with the law.

This reauthorization strengthens the evidence-based standard, ensuring the federal investment will go to programs that have demonstrated significant effectiveness. It also encourages continued growth in the anti-recidivism field by allowing a small portion of funds to go to promising programs, thus encouraging innovation and yielding the greatest results for the community.

A study of one intervention program that works with troubled youth and their families, Functional Family Therapy (FFT), found that youth whose families received FFT coaching were half as likely to be rearrested as those whose families did not. Another study found FFT reduced subsequent out-of- home placements by three quarters. Further, because of the reduced costs associated with crime and contact with the justice system, FFT was found to save the public $27,000 per youth treated. Another intervention that works with the families of serious juvenile offenders, Multisystemic Therapy (MST), found juvenile offenders who had not received MST were 62 percent more likely to be arrested for another offense, and more than twice as likely to be arrested for a violent offense.

One effective, research-based program, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) provides specially selected and trained foster parents for seriously troubled youth who cannot stay with their parents. While the youth are in foster care learning crucial skills, their parents are receiving coaching so they can continue the process of directing their children's behavior in more positive ways once the youths return home. In studies, MTFC has been shown to cut juvenile recidivism in half and save the public an average of $9,000 for every juvenile treated. Each of these programs can be used successfully either in place of residential facilities, or as after-care upon leaving a facility.

As these programs help to reduce youth recidivism, there also needs to be a clear sense of the progress being made and areas for continued improvement. We support the National Recidivism Measure within this reauthorization that instructs the Administrator to establish a uniform measure of data collection that states can voluntarily adopt, or not, as another tool to evaluate data on juvenile recidivism. The option of measure some re-offending outcomes in the same way could help states compare results and share best practices.

Law enforcement nationwide remain committed to doing what is necessary to protect public safety, and we know that families and communities have an important role to play. We support the reauthorization of JJDPA, which will provide support for family-centered and community-based interventions, like FFT, MST, and MFTC. This is a strategic investment in public safety. Changing the behavior of a teenager is more likely than changing the behavior of an adult career criminal. This not only benefits those youths, but also law enforcement, the taxpayer, and the community.

We urge Congress to pass the reauthorization of JJDPA that will prioritize evidence-based programs to get troubled kids back on track and improve public safety.
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