BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — Idaho Juvenile Corrections (IDJC) has seen success in low recommitment and recidivism rates over the last few years.
Low recommitment rates means fewer juveniles, are returning to department custody after previously released. Recidivism rates represent the percentage of juveniles released from state custody that are re-adjudicated (misdemeanor or felony) within 12 months of release.
“It's the lowest that we've had in history, and we're thrilled. We're thrilled to report that. Success rates are not just DJC, it's the entire system,” IDJC Director Monty Prow said.
Prow says the entire system consists of a collaboration of programs at the state and county levels. These are also funded partially by them.
According to Prow, the decline of recommitment and recidivism is due to these collaborations of community resources like education, counseling, skill-building and family engagement programs, and targeted treatment.
Idaho is seeing a rise in population, including in the younger generations. The graph below shows that even as the youth population in Idaho grows at fast rates, arrests, probation, detention and custody rates are at a downward trend.
“We're talking about ensuring folks are in the communities, Paying taxes, being productive, working through those issues,” Prow said.
Prow says that it’s more efficient to invest in preventative tools in Idaho’s youth systems than spend time fixing issues and solving problems after misdemeanors and felonies are committed.
“For taxpayers, it's much more wise to invest your funds in the upfront than to invest those funds on the deepest end,” Prow said.
Prow says Idaho Department of Correction and Idaho Juvenile Corrections are different agencies but have similar goals. He says agencies want to return offenders to the community as prepared and active community members.
“The youth will self-correct or correct that the lightest touch of government, and certainly that's what we're trying to do is keep them at home, keep them at school,” Prow said. “Keep them working so they can be productive citizens.”
Prow says the system has goals that go beyond success stories in data, but in the lives that are changed daily.
“Even simple things that, you know, maybe you and I as parents, sort of take for granted. Bedtime and the teeth brushing, that's a big deal for a lot of families in Idaho and a big deal for a lot of folks who may not have had a stable life in the past and are really trying to work through that together,” said Prow.
It’s life skills like these at home to transition into the community.
“Idahoans should be very proud of that system, both the outcomes, not just in the numbers but because of the lives that are changed on a daily basis,” Prow said.
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