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Rhode Island Truants Who Offend Magistrates Are Sent Straight To Jail

February 01, 2011 posted by Steve Brownstein

By Lynn Arditi

For years, magistrates for Rhode Island Family Court’s truancy program have imprisoned students who misbehave during hearings on their attendance, despite a state law created to keep the government from locking up juveniles for noncriminal offenses.

The magistrates, who run the weekly truancy court in classrooms, cafeterias and school offices around the state, have declared youths as young as 12 in criminal contempt of court for not answering their questions, swearing, slamming a door on their way out of the room or otherwise showing “total disregard for authority,” according to court documents and interviews.

Once inside the state’s juvenile correctional system, the youths are forced to undergo strip searches, urine and blood tests. They wear prison uniforms and, for a night or two, mix with teenagers accused of drug dealing, robbery, weapons possession, assault and other violent crimes.

Juveniles who skip school –– like those who drink alcohol or violate a curfew –– are considered “status offenders” because their transgressions would not be considered crimes if they were adults.

Rhode Island law states that no child should be detained at the state Training School for a status offense.

But since 2005, the magistrates have sent at least 28 youths from truancy court to the Training School, records show, under an exception in the state law for criminal contempt of court. Few if any have been represented by a lawyer prior to their detention, as is their constitutionally guaranteed right. The proceedings are closed to the public, and the records are private.

“These are blatant violations,” Rhode Island Public Defender John J. Hardiman said. “There’s no ‘this is a gray area of the law.’ It’s clear you can’t detain [in] these cases.”

More than 6,100 students entered the Family Court’s truancy program from 2005 through 2009, according to data the state reported to the federal Department of Justice. The Journal confirmed that at least 28 students were detained during those years, a small fraction of the total who participated in the program. But juvenile-justice advocates and a former U.S. Justice Department official say that even one detention of a status offender is troubling.

John J. Wilson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who worked almost 31 years for the Justice Department, wrote the federal regulations for compliance with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. The act provides money to states, including Rhode Island, if they abide by federal protections for youths in the justice system. To incarcerate juveniles for noncriminal offenses, even for one night, Wilson said, violates the basic premise of the federal act.

“We don’t punish adults for doing things that are not criminal,” he said, “so why in heaven’s name would we punish children for doing things that aren’t criminal?”

For Rhode Island to use its criminal-contempt statute to lock up truants, Wilson said, is “an abuse of judicial authority…. And it’s a practice that should be stopped.”

The state’s detention of these youths, Wilson said, could jeopardize Rhode Island’s eligibility for federal funding. But the detentions have gone largely unnoticed because the state has failed to report them to the federal justice officials who monitor state compliance with federal regulations.

Annie Salsich, director of the Youth Justice Program at The VERA Institute of Justice, a national nonprofit with offices in New York and Washington, said some judges resort to locking up juveniles because they see it as the only option.

“These are often young people who are in crisis, and they do need assistance and support and, often, services,” she said. “The judges often feel exasperated, like their hands are tied, with parents who are often exhausted and at the end of their ropes and asking for help. And the judges feel like they need to do something.”

But research shows that locking up these youths isn’t the answer, she said, and may even create new problems.

“Mixing kids who are low risk with the kids who really do pose a risk to public safety,” Salsich said –– “they learn skills we don’t want them to be learning.”

Public defenders normally learn that a juvenile from these programs has been locked up only if someone alerts them or if they spot the cases on a list of detainees coming from the Training School into Family Court for a hearingAccording to Hardiman, "Their goals may be excellent goals: to try to get kids to go to school to better themselves to be more productive citizens,”

"But taking a shortcut and sending a kid to the Training School without due process, you just can’t do it…. They’re violating the law…. And it’s wrong. And they should know better. And they do know better.”