Learning outcomes

- Understand how DJJ can improve.

- Understand how the community can improve outcomes of previously incarcerated.

Moving forward, there are many opportunities to improve the juvenile justice system. Changes start with law and policy, which decide who is sentenced to incarceration. Then, during incarceration, there is an opportunity to provide intentional staff who are confident in their ability to connect with children for rehabilitation purposes. Education while incarcerated can create the foundation for post-incarceration success, as can a successful post-incarceration plan. And finally, there is a significant opportunity for changing the culture of the entire system from schools to courtrooms to prisons and communities.

Law/policy

The most obvious first step in improving the juvenile justice system is to prohibit minors from being incarcerated for misdemeanors, most notably the three status offenses discussed earlier: truancy, running away, and incorrigibility. Incarcerating children for misdemeanors can lead to increased criminalization (Gupta-Kagan et al., 2017). Prohibiting runaways from being incarcerated will highlight the current practice of incarcerating girls (there are a few boys, but this happens primarily to girls) who have been sex-trafficked. This will create the need for alternative programming for these girls since incarceration is currently being used as a placement.

Changing the policy around how children move through the system creates an opportunity as well. By decentralizing juvenile facilities, DJJ can expose children to fewer other inmates and locate them closer to family.

Recommendation: Prohibit incarceration for status offenses and misdemeanors. Create smaller, more supportive environments for juveniles, which would include increasing the number of alternative placements.

Education

Students historically enter the juvenile justice system “overage and under credit”, and since education is a cornerstone of success, how do students get an intensive education while in the system and create a path back to education post-incarceration? The path back to education would require a law/policy change around the exclusion from community schools for 365 days post-involvement with the system. To provide an intense and appropriate education for children, we need qualified teachers who have been trained in trauma-informed practices. Having a few teachers centrally create lessons and “send them out” to the teacher assistants does not give students the best chance for success.

Recommendation: Increase the number of trauma-informed teaching staff and prioritize education.

Recruitment and retention of staff

Recruiting and retaining staff for juvenile corrections is difficult across the nation. Tipton (2002) notes that there was a lack of African American staff in SCDJJ even though African Americans comprise the majority of the inmates (p. 92). Female officers report feeling less safe than male officers in SCDJJ according to the Tipton study. Since Director Hendrick has stepped into the SCDJJ system, pay for staff has increased, and the staffing shortages have begun to lessen.

Interviews with current staff point to two areas for improvement in retention of current staff: increase the number of Black male role models, provide job security, and create a safer working environment.

Black male teachers and role models

Given that the population of juvenile incarceration in South Carolina is disproportionally Black males, it is incumbent on the system to provide Black male role models and teachers for these students. Multiple staff members noted the lack of role models to whom students can relate.

Allowing students to see a role model who looks like them is critical in helping them envision success. Ray discusses four key reasons that Black male mentors are essential: they are culturally responsive, they reinforce positive racial identity, they have critical consciousness, and they address opportunity gaps (Ray, n.d.).

Job security and a safer working environment

Multiple interviewees talked about the fear of getting fired for protecting themselves or getting hurt. Other than the obvious concern about physical harm to self, staff are worried about workers’ compensation and what they would do if they were injured and could not work. In the minds of some staff, the worst-case scenario would be that they would heal physically but could not go back inside to work. No one wanted to elaborate on specifics, so a story from the news demonstrates their concerns. In October 2022, carpentry teacher Wes Laws was attacked in his classroom. It was reported that a staffing shortage, specifically a 38.7% vacancy rate at the Broad River Road facility (Birchwood), led to this incident (Joseph, 2023). A juvenile attacked the teacher with tools taken from the carpentry room. Then multiple students took tools and began to riot on campus, destroying property and threatening students and staff. Before the incident, Laws had written an email to Director Hendrick:

Recommendation: Recruit Black male role models as teaching and other educational staff. Create a safe teaching environment with added security measures.

Post-incarceration

When students are released from incarceration, they are released to an adult as they are juveniles. Some return to their parents at home, while others go to foster homes or group homes. Students are not allowed to attend public schools for 365 days post-incarceration, so what do they do? They can attend online classes, they can move to a relative’s house in another state, they can finish a GED, or they can get a job. What are their job prospects? As a community, are we bringing these students back to a community that provides opportunities, or are communities saying, “You are not welcome”?

Recommendation: For children to be successful, they need to leave incarceration and move to an environment where success has been set up for them. They need to go to a safe home with adequate food and supervision. They need a purpose: either work or education. And they need to be surrounded by positive adults and mentors.

Culture

All humans need to be treated with dignity and respect; children need more caring since they are still children. Punishing children does not teach them how to behave; it only teaches them what not to do. Flipping an institutional culture from one of punitive reactions to one where children are actively put in situations for success will take time and intentionality. As an interview participant said, “There is no other option.” Without cultural mechanisms supporting their success, these children are destined to a life of incarceration.

Reyes, Radina and Aronson (2018) talk about radical love in teaching. Their book, “Teaching Against the Grain”, espouses three keys to teaching vulnerability: collective support, healing, and critique. hooks wrote prolifically about the concept of transformation through radical love in social justice and education. Olave, Tolbert and Frausto Aceves (2023) discuss radical love as growing from a collective, righteous anger at injustice They also echo Reyes, Radina and Aronson (2018) in positioning radical love as a theory of caring, community, and mutual respect. “In thinking of the culture around troubled children, we need to embrace them as they are and help them move toward success.” Radical love in juvenile detention includes compassion and transformation. This is closely related to the vision of SCDJJ.

Recommendation: Work toward a culture of radical love for the children in the juvenile system. Embrace the opportunity to create success in children.

Summary

There are many opportunities to improve the SCDJJ. These solutions require funding and reframing of how children are treated when they make mistakes. There is room for a healthy balance of accountability and rehabilitation.

Discussion questions

1. What do you think should be the first improvement to the justice system?

2. What one change do you think would be most impactful on changing recidivism rates?

3. What do you think about the theory of radical love in juvenile justice?

Extension activities

1. Find an article by bell hooks or Paulo Freire about radical love and activism. How does this approach change the way we interact with incarcerated children?

2. Read the Juvenile Justice Report cited in the References section and write your own white paper on juvenile justice reform.

3. Examine juvenile justice reform elsewhere; what are they doing well? What practices could be brought to South Carolina?