A juvenile crimes defense attorney will do everything in his power to get your child out of detention.
Juvenile detention centers are not a good place for kids to be. And unfortunately, LA’s juvenile detention centers are some of the worst in the country. The Justice Department has had to be called in to supervise LA’s facilities due to the many, many cases of documented abuse.
The purpose of juvenile detention is to temporarily house minors who are at high risk of reoffending, unlikely to appear at their adjudication, or considered a danger to public safety. However, in practice we see that juvenile detention is increasingly being used for non-violent offenders who do not meet any of these high-risk criteria that juvenile detention was designed to handle. One study placed the amount of youth offenders in custody for non-violent offenses at 70 percent.
Consequences of Juvenile Detention
A growing body of evidence is showing that locking minors up is actually the worst thing to do for kids and for the community. According to Supreme Court Justice Marshall, pretrial juvenile detention causes harm equivalent to adult incarceration.
Here is a sample of the facts reported in a national report on juvenile detention by The Justice Policy Institute:
- Prior detention is a major risk factor for recidivism, greater than being in a gang or having a poor relationship with parents
- Detention increases the risk of self-harm and suicide
- Many detained juveniles do not re-enroll in school or drop out within 5 months of release
- Detained juveniles learn bad habits from one other and end up with higher levels of substance abuse, delinquency, and violence as adults.
- Detained youth are more likely to have a formal disposition filed against them and receive a more serious punishment
Fight to Avoid Detention
The best thing you can do to prevent your child from getting sucked into the juvenile detention system is to hire an experienced juvenile crimes defense attorney such as Dan E. Chambers. Your attorney will do everything in his power to expedite the case and minimize the time the minor spends in custody prior to the adjudication. If the case does proceed to court, your attorney can of course build a strong defense strategy and work hard to secure the most favorable outcome possible to the case, which would hopefully be probation and treatment or counseling rather than further incarceration.
