Children’s Commission Recommends Juvenile Violence Mitigation Programs

By Whitney Downard, Indiana Capital Dispatch

August 25, 2022

The Commission on Improving the Status of Children in Indiana on Wednesday officially recommended three programs for Hoosier communities designed to reduce and prevent juvenile violence, promising to determine whether state funding could be obtained in the future.

“These are programs that have been looked at and evaluated and could work in your communities,” said Steve Balko, the director of school building security with the Indiana Department of Education. “We’re not asking for any funding to be associated with anything.”

Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush said a number of grants would be available to communities in the future but this helps communities know where to start.

“I will look at the funding I’ve got available, the grants I’ve got available and (the Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council)… and see if we can assist them,” Rush said.

The Juvenile Violence subcommittee analyzed various methods utilized across the country, presenting three options it determined would best work in Indiana.

“The reasons that we chose three, rather than just one, is recognizing that not every community has the same resources, has the same needs (or) is facing the same violence issues,” Balko said.
The options

The Cure Violence model, from a Chicago-based organization, included intervention methods designed to interrupt youth violence through street mediation, hospital intervention and group meetings.

For youth committee member Dejuna Rodriguez, whose brother was hospitalized after a shooting last month, more could be done post-treatment.

“When you’re there, you’ve got doctors, nurses and different people talking to you about different things when you’re mentally probably still trying to cope with trauma,” Rodriguez said. “But I noticed that now he’s out of the hospital and it’s like that energy (to help him recover) isn’t there.”

The committee also recommended Project BUILD, which specializes in gang intervention and youth development, as well as Credible Messengers for Justice Involved Youth, which connects young adults with peers who share their experiences, often those who were previously incarcerated themselves.

Balko said typically the initiatives were locally focused and not state funded, such as the Marion County Center, which has a team that responds to shootings and attempts to stop the cycle of violence.

A presentation to the committee revealed that Black, non-Hispanic teens between the ages of 16 and 17 were most likely to be adjudicated or convicted of a gun-related offense and more likely to experience gun violence firsthand. Compared to their white peers, these youth were also 3.5 times more likely to be referred to the court system.

Data accuracy

However, the data team acknowledged weaknesses in their analysis, noting the state’s data collection was uneven, inconsistent and sometimes wrong about specific counties. The subcommittee gathered data specifically on unlawful carrying of a handgun and dangerous possession due to the nationwide increase in gun violence.

“One thing that we learned almost right away is that we need to be cautious about drawing any conclusions from this because the data is likely incomplete,” said Nancy Wever, the director of the Indiana Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative at the Indiana Supreme Court.

In 2022, the General Assembly struck Indiana’s gun licensing requirement for those 18 and over.
Recognizing the impact on youth, HB 1359 created a Youth Justice Oversight Committee to better collect data and identify ways to reduce juvenile recidivism, which Wever said would better inform future analysis.

The commission also approved its annual report Wednesday, highlighting its ninth year of reviewing and reporting on childhood and juvenile issues. Commissioners endorsed juvenile justice reform policy recommendations, analyzed pilot programs for youth mental health and issued reports on dozens of bills, including the passage of 75 laws.

At its next meeting, the group will learn whether their efforts have made a difference, including whether the state’s legislators knew of their work in a specialized survey. Past initiatives include a resource guide on reducing the use of seclusion and restraint in child-caring settings and positive discipline guides for schools.

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