October is Youth Justice Awareness Month in Utah — an opportunity to celebrate positive developments in our juvenile justice system and recommit to the urgent work that still awaits.
There is much to celebrate. HB 239, a substantial juvenile justice reform package that passed during the 2017 legislative session, reflects a broad consensus that unnecessary court involvement and detention harms children and wastes public funds. Witness, for example, the remarkable efforts of Juvenile Justice Services (JJS) in directing resources away from costly detention facilities and towards community, school, and family-based interventions. The Juvenile Probation Department is dramatically expanding their efforts to work with youth in trouble for minor offenses at the front end, eliminating the need for formal court proceedings in many cases.