Legal Research

Crime Victims Say Portland Oregon Juvenile Reforms Went too Far

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime and Justice News, May 30, 2008.

"Portland's Multnomah County juvenile justice system is broken, with youth offenders not being held accountable for serious crimes, says a crime victims' advocacy group report quoted by The Oregonian. The report, written by a retired juvenile probation officer for Crime Victims United, took more than a year and is dedicated to the memory of Davonte Lightfoot, a 14- year-old who was fatally shot last year. When he was gunned down, Lightfoot was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet. He already had 16 juvenile referrals, a history of probation violations and a gun possession charge. Three weeks before Lightfoot's death, a prosecutor unsuccessfully tried to persuade a judge to detain him."

" 'From the intake of cases, through court proceedings and probation, delinquent youth are given few credible reasons to change,' the report says. 'Effective enforcement of court-ordered mandates is scarce to nonexistent.' The report blames the county for taking the philosophy of the Annie E. Casey Foundation too far, essentially designing a juvenile justice system that looks more like a child welfare agency intent on minimizing consequences for youth facing criminal charges. The foundation provided Multnomah and five other counties money in the mid-'90s for reforms that encouraged detention alternatives for young offenders. As a result, the report argues, fewer juvenile offenders are detained; staff who challenge decisions face potential retribution, the private nonprofit agencies assigned to make initial contacts with youth have no power to enforce treatment or other conditions of offenders' probation; and police have lost confidence in the system. The report notes that youth who are detained on serious charges may play handheld video games in their rooms."

The Oregonian

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).