 My name is Cynthia Gordigua, Marketing Director at ProPublica and your host for tonight. Thank you for joining us. I hope you've had a chance to read the investigations that we'll be digging into. But just to table set, tonight we're gonna be talking about the juvenile justice system in Michigan. As a recent ProPublica analysis found, in this system, children are being jailed for things like skipping school, disobeying their parents or other non-criminal offenses. And the numbers are striking. Michigan's rate of minors held for non-criminal technical violations is more than twice the national rate. We'll talk about this with the terrific group of experts who you see on your screen. We'll be doing this across two panels moderated by ProPublica reporter Jodi S. Cohen, who started reporting on this issue last year. So in panel one, Jodi will speak with the Michigan teenager who we're calling Grace for middle name to protect her identity. Grace is a high school junior who likes winter sports and road trips. And she was sent to a detention center for 75 days last summer for failing to do online coursework. She's here with us tonight with her camera turned off and we'll be hearing from her about her experience and how she's doing six months later. In the first panel, we'll also hear from ProPublica reporter Dua Aldi, who has also investigated juvenile justice issues in the Midwest and Jason Smith, the executive director of the Michigan Center for Youth Justice. In panel two, we'll be joined by Michigan Supreme Court Justice, Elizabeth T. Clement, Michigan State Senator Sylvia Santana, Ellie Savit, who was the prosecutor of Michigan's Washtenelle County and Frank Banderbord, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where he teaches in the child advocacy and juvenile justice clinics. Then everyone will be coming back for your questions. I mean, we've received some great ones, but if you'd like to submit a question during the webinar, click the Q and A icon at the bottom of your screen to type it in. And if you're watching on the YouTube livestream, hello, you can also submit a question by clicking the link just below the video and that will take you to a form to submit a question. But first, I'll throw it over to ProPublica reporter, Jodi S. Cohen. Jodi, if you can unmute yourself. Hi, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us tonight for this discussion. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about how we started reporting on juvenile justice in Michigan and on Grace's case. So the story started when my phone rang in late May last year. And the woman who called, who I learned was Grace's mother sounded very upset, frustrated and exhausted. She told me her daughter was in detention for a couple of weeks at that point and she wasn't able to see her because of COVID restrictions and they had barely even been able to talk on the phone. She said Grace had been struggling with school and got a probation violation and that she was currently in detention and could be there for months. ProPublica was not the first place she called and it wasn't her first choice. She called lawyers and advocates and other organizations and no one seemed able to help her. She got to me, she told me because she Googled students with disabilities and COVID and found some stories that I had written for ProPublica. She wanted to know if there was a ProPublica in Michigan and a reporter who could look into her daughter's case in Michigan. And at the time, we did not have a newsroom in Michigan. Although now I'm very happy to say we do have a Michigan based reporter. I previously worked in Michigan at the Detroit news and I lived in Oakland County where she lived and I knew the school and I knew some of the politics of Oakland County. And I asked her if it would be okay if I looked into the case. I asked her to send me some documents so I could better understand the situation. It just sounded kind of unbelievable. Not that I didn't believe her but as reporters we often rely on documents as part of our reporting. Very soon after maybe that evening or the next morning she sent me various records including the order from the judge that clearly stated the reason for the detention. And it said found guilty on failure to submit to any schoolwork and getting up for school. The judge had ordered her to secure detention because of prior charges of assault and theft. Now those charges at this point were six months old and she wasn't sent to detention because of those charges and hadn't been. And there had been no police involvement since that time. The family asked the judge to not send her away. So from that point I spoke to Grace's mom almost every day. I traveled to Michigan to review the court files and the recorded court hearings. I obtained data about the Oakland County court and I spoke to many people who work in juvenile justice including people who are joining us tonight. And I can tell you that the people who work in juvenile justice are some of the kindness and earnest people you'll meet and they're very generous with their time. We published Grace's story on July 14th. And if you've read the investigation you know what happened next. The story just went viral. There were hundreds of thousands of people who signed a petition for her release. There were protests, there were car caravans. Celebrities were tweeting to release her and within two weeks the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered that she be released. So I've been working as a journalist now for more than 20 years and I've written hundreds of stories, big stories, small stories. And there are some stories that will stay with me forever and this is for sure one of them. One of the greatest privileges of my career was Grace and her mom trusting me with their story and then my ability to share their story with the world. Today I'm so honored that I can introduce Grace to all of you and that she's now in a position to tell her own story. This morning Grace and her mom were talking about tonight's event and Grace learned that her camera would be off-doring it. She hadn't really realized that before but her mom told her there are thousands of graces out there so it's not about your face, it's about your voice and you're the voice of those graces. It's your voice that needs to be heard. So with that, I'm gonna turn to Grace and let you hear directly from her. So Grace, thank you again for joining us tonight and I'd like to just start by asking what do you want people to know about your experience with the juvenile justice system? Well, first of all, I just wanna say hello and thank you so much Jody for this opportunity and thank you so much for trusting us and listening to my mother when she needed you and needed someone to listen and I really appreciate you being that person. So starting off with your first question, I would just honestly, I honestly just want people to know that my experience in the juvenile system was nothing like floaty and rehabilitation was not being... Thank you for inviting me. Rehabilitation was not being nearly as gray or up to the potential that it could have been and I feel like I was really given the short end of the stick at the end of the day when it came to that and I just wanna state that we didn't have school for about three months and it was a very awkward transition already to an online environment beforehand. So this is before I went to the correctional facility or the juvenile facility, we hadn't been in school for about three months. So it was kind of just awkward coming back and I remember when we started, it was like the teachers didn't know what they were doing and it was just a whole lot of confusion among the staff and students. So when I was sent to the juvenile facility, it just felt like I didn't even, I just remember standing in the courtroom and them putting my hands behind my back and telling me like, we have to go and like my mom, I was like, can I hug my mom? And she was like, no. Or the police officer behind me was like, no. And my mom was like crying at that point because it was just a terrifying experience and honestly very traumatic, the whole entire experience. A lot of the staff honestly were not as supportive in the rehabilitation aspect. They weren't really like, I won't say a lot but most of them were really not comforting. A lot of them would say sometimes really mean stuff. And I remember one time a staff was just explaining that he was a bad child, but he just never got caught. And I remember just being in shock in that moment because I'm like, how could you say that? Like, are you saying it's okay to do the wrong thing but it's not okay to get, like, it's okay to get not caught? Like, I don't understand. But I actually injected into that conversation and I was like, so did you ever end up going to a juvenile facility? And he was like, no. And I said, well, you are doing well now. You have a job and you are successful in your career obviously. And so to me it was like you, but you never went to a juvenile facility. So I don't think juvenile facilities are even the right answer for rehabilitation. But yeah, I honestly did not enjoy that experience obviously, but yeah. Thank you for that. So you were still in detention and you were on track to be there for many more months when your story became public. What was it like being there and knowing that people cared about what was happening to you and were motivated to take action with the petitions and the protests and there was this viral hashtag, free grace. What was that like when you realized that? Yeah, so I just, some people know we're not allowed to watch the news. We're not allowed to really know what's going on. We're not allowed to really even know dates into the future. We're not allowed to plan. We're not allowed to have calendars. There's one calendar and then that's it. So that just gives you an idea of how secluded I was and kind of cut off. So but when I did see my lawyers for the first time and my new lawyers and they had came in and they were basically saying and with enthusiasm, they were explaining to me how much people cared and how supporting everyone was not everyone, but how everyone was really rallying behind me and behind my mother and behind this cause. And to me that just felt like amazing. It felt like it gave me hope really because I was in this situation where I didn't see an end. I didn't see a future and I didn't see how I was gonna get out of it. But hearing that people cared and people were listening really just, it really brought my spirits up and it really pushed me to continue doing the right thing in that situation. So. And then you got out and what happened? What did you do after you got out in terms of advocacy work and other action in the past six months? Like being inside and seeing what you saw, how did what happen to you inspire you to get involved in different ways after you were released? Yeah, so after I really, like I came home, I remember the first day I was eating Panda Express, one of the first like fast foods I had eaten in a long time, but it was really good. But I remember sitting there and thinking, so what now? Like what do we do now? Like how do we change this? Cause it's definitely not over. At the time I was still on probation. So we were still looking forward to a court date with my judge at the time. And after, I believe it was in September when I started working with Michigan Liberation and I just found this organization. My mom had brought me to a rally one day and I remember them saying they're hiring canvassers and people to join in with them to kind of just advocate and for like justice, like social justice and issues and things. And I was really interested because I'm like, hey, this is right up my alley. So I just joined in and we got right to work with canvassing going door to door and just explaining to people about different issues and how they can make a change in their community. And then I really just wanted to be a voice for people who don't have voices, kind of how you were for me and how so many other people were for me. I just wanna give back to that because I wouldn't be like sitting anywhere if anyone, if no one had listened. I would probably still be in there. I mean, I think I was supposed to leave in November but still I would have just came home not knowing what to do. Probably behind in school as well. But I just want people to know that when you see something, like when you see something or you experience something, don't just let it like float to the back of your mind. Don't let it just pass away or fade away. Just act on it in that moment and act on it as soon as possible because that could be somebody else's, like life or somebody else's experience as well. And I just think it's important to communicate about whatever you experienced and act on it. Tonight we're gonna hear from a lot of different experts and I'm wondering from you what changes you would like to see in the way the system works or doesn't work for kids. While the experts are gonna be talking, you're an expert from your experience. What would, what do you want the experts in this field to know the people who work in juvenile detention, who work in the courts, the advocates and others? What do you want them to know to help them understand how the policies and laws need to change to either prevent children from becoming a part of the juvenile justice system? And if they do, how to help them once they are in the system? For sure, yes. And I was actually waiting for this question because I have some ideas as to what could really change and be better for kids. So I'll start off, firstly, I feel like every child that is brought into the courtroom is not a criminal and they're not necessarily unchangeable. And I feel like they deserve to be heard no matter what the case is, no matter what they seem to be have done or no matter whatever the circumstances, I feel like they deserve to have a voice because I remember in my first Zoom call, I was shut down. And I don't want that to happen to anyone else because that's not the best feeling. And I think it's important just overall to listen to kids and teens and just like I said, for the judges to allow the kid to speak and have a voice. Because I actually remember I was in the facility and I was saying, should I create a statement? I was asking one of the staff, should I create a statement? Like, should I write my statement or I was asking for advice? And they had basically told me, usually kids don't say anything during the trial is usually it's just the adults talking or whatever the case may be. And I was like kind of shocked because I remember me trying to speak in my first trial. So I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna have a statement because if I'm allowed to have a statement, I'm gonna say something and I'm gonna try to speak my piece. So I think that's important, definitely to change to allow the kid to speak. And first of all, second of all, to have the right resources to uplift that kid. So whether it be a lawyer or for the judge to be properly trained to handle situations with kids, like talk to kids. And honestly, I was thinking like therapists, like not necessarily therapists, but you know how therapists kind of understand and can like see signals from kids of how they talk or different like non-verbal communication. I think those basic things should be trained or the judges should be trained to learn how to notice those because I mean, if you don't know how to work with kids and you're planning out or not even planning but dictating how this kid's future is gonna look, I think it's important that you at least know them or you at least know what's going through their head or what they want for their future. And I feel like sometimes judges feel like all they need to know is the law and that's it. But I think it's also important that judges know their kids and who they're helping out or not helping out. At your court hearings, because you didn't have, there was no trial, but at the court hearings that you had, you felt like you weren't necessarily understood or that the case wasn't, it was like fitting into some sort of formula not necessarily that you were being heard or that the decisions were being made based on your set of circumstances. Exactly, and I feel like, honestly, yeah, as well as I feel like when I had all my good behavior that was being used against me, when I had my good things that I was doing at home and my therapy and all of that, that was being used against me, it felt like nothing I did, either if I went the wrong direction or the right direction, didn't matter. I was still gonna end up there and I was still gonna stay there and that's a terrible feeling. I feel like that shouldn't have happened and I feel like if that kid is displaying that they can do better, if they can be better, then don't use that against that, though. Hold them to that and allow them a chance. And so I just, yeah, I honestly feel like if judges just were able to see from a perspective of wherever the kid is coming from and kind of even not, I mean, kind of even try to see the possibilities of what could be going on in the home instead of just kind of kind of pasting every single scenario and yeah, I think that would be a lot better for judges just to not kind of assume that, oh, this kid has done this, I've seen this before and let me just apply this, so yeah. Well, your insights are so helpful and so personal and thank you so much for sharing. Wynn, and please stick around for the Q&A and to hear from the other panelists. So after Grace was released, there was this lingering question of were there more Graces or how many more Graces were there? So encouraged by our editors, my colleague and friend Dua Eldib and I then launched into a broader investigation of Michigan's juvenile justice system. And we found that while Grace's case was extreme in several ways, it was emblematic of an archaic and fractured juvenile justice system. And we published a story in December that found that Michigan confines teenagers for technical violations of probation more often than three, but much larger states and at more than twice the national rate. And Dua's gonna join us now to talk briefly about what else we found when we looked into the Michigan juvenile justice system. Thanks, Jody, and thank you for your powerful reporting on Grace that really clued us in to look at Michigan juvenile justice system as a whole. I think one of the main things that we found is that the system there is so decentralized that there's not a single source of juvenile justice data, which means that the state can't provide even the most basic information like how many juveniles are in custody at any given time or why they're being detained. Their state is just not tracking it. Counties are keeping their own records and they act with so little oversight that there's just really the sense that nobody knows the extent to what's happening there in the juvenile justice system across the state. And Michigan doesn't have a standalone juvenile justice department. It's part of a massive department of health and human services there. And one of the terms that I heard more than once during our reporting was justice by geography. So a teenager in one part of the state may have a very different experience than someone who lives in another part of the state. Other states have been able to mandate consistent policy across the board. But because of the way that Michigan system is set up it's really been a barrier to that. And I think that leads me to some of our other findings. We looked at, there's really very little state data but we looked at what available federal data there was and we found, like you said, 30% of the youth had been confined to detention or a residential treatment facilities for non-criminal offenses. But when we talked to people about that many of them didn't know that that was happening. They were shocked that Michigan was such an outlier in that regard. And we heard that shock again when we talked about status offenses. And status offenses are just offenses that are a violation of the law because of the child status as a minor. So think of truancy or running away and or incorrigibility, which was something that really stood out in Michigan. And that basically means disobeying your parents repeatedly. And so children were being sent to detention for these status offenses in Michigan in much higher rates than in other states. And so when we reached out to experts about our findings many of them were surprised to learn that this was happening and the same thing happened with probation violations. Children were being sent to detention for probation violations, like not logging into remote school or testing positive for marijuana. And Jodi, you and I would be logging into YouTube and we'd watch the same court hearings on YouTube. And we would see kids either at home or in a nearly empty courthouse that they were being called in during a pandemic because of their violation of probation. And so there was one day where three black teenagers were all up on the same day in the same court because they hadn't logged into their remote learning, their online class for weeks. And their lawyer had explained that some of them had difficulty with their laptop or hard time adjusting to the new online system, problems affording wifi. But because they were already in the juvenile justice system and this was considered a technical violation of probation they were facing more than a month in detention. And in the end, the judge ended up not locking them up during a pandemic for missing school but that wasn't always what happened. And what we found over and over was that really wasn't surprising that there were three black teenagers who were involved on that one day because children of color were disproportionately involved at nearly every point of the juvenile justice system including who gets put on probation. And so I mean, I think all of that gets back to what I mentioned at the beginning and this lack of data because one of the things that we heard across the board was it's really hard to fix a problem if you don't know how pervasive it is. So in Michigan, there's a deep need to understand what's happening from county to county quorum to courtroom. Thank you for that overview. That was very helpful in setting the framework. We're gonna turn to Jason Smith and Jason's worked in many different positions within the juvenile justice system including working with youth in the system as a caseworker. So Jason, we hear a lot of stats about the number of children and teens who are incarcerated and we heard of course tonight from Grace about her experience. Can you share the negative consequences for young people who are placed out of their homes, particularly for non-criminal offenses like truancy running away and other offenses like that? Yes, hi. So before I get started, I just wanna give a quick thanks to Grace. I've never had a chance to speak to her but your bravery and your courage for sharing your story is going to help kids here in Michigan and across the country too. So just you should be proud of the work you've done. And your mom too, you're really strong people and I'm honored to share the space with you. So there's plenty of research out there and evidence that shows that locking up young people who commit low level offenses or non-criminal offenses can actually worsen the outcomes for them. It most likely won't help resolve the issues that led to the offense in the first place. And some of those factors could be family relationship problems or the need for educational supports that aren't being addressed. And Grace kind of hinted at that when talking about the transition to online learning or even a child's concern about their own safety in school. When I worked in previous jobs doing direct service with court involved youth or justice involved youth, I had several cases where a young person was either being bullied at school or threatened and felt unsupported by the adults who were supposed to protect them. And so they just skip school to stay safe. It's not a criminal act and shouldn't be treated in that way. Confinement does not solve that. And it can disrupt any kind of physical and mental health treatment that the youth is participating in. Again, that's an example that Grace gave about her case where she was receiving quality treatment and had a plan in place in the community before the court moved to a confiner. And it can disrupt any kind of positive activities that would actually reduce the likelihood of re-offending, like playing sports or working at a job. Even a short-term detention state can be really difficult for a young person to re-enter society, return back to school and just go back to normal. It's really a disruption. Kids who can be safely and successfully treated at home should be the simple fact. And I wanna know that there are jurisdictions here in Michigan who have put a lot of effort into changing their local policies and practices to reduce their reliance on confinement. I've worked directly with them. I've seen those reforms happen and I've even seen the positive reactions of the communities once they hear about those changes being made. But as Dua indicated, we have a decentralized system here. And so those changes in policy and practice are county-specific. And so only the children who live in those communities can benefit from those confinement alternatives. Exactly what Dua said. There's an issue of justice by geography here, which means that a young person's experience in the justice system can really vary and it depends on where they live. And if there's community-based alternatives that exist and the philosophy of the local juvenile court. It's really, it's an issue of fairness. It's an issue of social justice. And more specifically, it's an issue of racial justice. Kids who can be successfully treated at home should be. Dua also mentioned, I don't wanna just gloss over it, that there are many states that never lock up kids for non-criminal offenses. We have to promote those best practices. We have to share the lessons that are learned from those other states and from the local courts here that have successfully implemented reforms to keep kids at home. But you just mentioned the racial disparities. And I'd like to see if you can dig a little deeper, explain that a little bit more. Children of color are disproportionately involved in the juvenile justice system across the country, but Michigan's among the states where the disparities are really the starkest. Can you talk about those disparities? What's driving them and how to address them? Yeah, so here in Michigan, just like around the country, youth of color and most specifically black youth, they're overrepresented at various stages of the juvenile justice system. And that includes arrest, detention, who's diverted, whose cases are transferred to the adult system. And like we've already discussed, it's hard to make strong claims about what's driving these disparities in local jurisdictions without strong statewide data, but from national research and from other stories. And we can draw some sort of conclusions about what's driving things. So for example, young youth of color often live in communities that are heavily policed. And unequal policing can drive racial disparities and arrests. They disproportionately utilize school-based arrests and court referrals to deal with behaviors for issues for youth of color. And that's what is commonly referred to as a school-to-prison pipeline. There's either a lack of prevention programs or services. And then if they do exist, they don't meet the needs of youth or aren't culturally relevant. And we cannot not acknowledge bias, whether it's conscious or unconscious that can influence the decision-making of justice system actors. And I use that term justice system actors broadly to include law enforcement, prosecutors, judges and juvenile court staff. Their decisions, if their bias can disproportionately push young people deeper into the system. So tonight we just want to only talk about the problems but also the solutions. And we're going to ask each panelist to name up to three changes that you would make right now that would improve the lives of children in Michigan involved in the juvenile justice system or maybe to prevent them from being involved in the juvenile justice system. So I'm gonna put you on the spot if you could name up to three changes that you would make. Sure. So if I could keep focusing on racial disparities, we must first be intentional in addressing the problem. It's not enough to just acknowledge like we have for so many years that disparities exist. There needs to be targeted responses and interventions that focus on youth of color with the goal of reducing their rate of court involvement even in the first place. Or if court involvement is necessary, ensure that the interventions that they receive are truly effective and rehabilitative. We talked about data, we need better data. We need to be able to better track racial demographic data both at the state level and within local jurisdictions. I think that we should even drill down to specific zip codes in schools so that we can better understand what's driving the racial disparities at various stages of the justice system. And again, target resources and interventions. And then I think we should use evidence-based and needs assessments to inform court decision making and treatment planning. Many courts do make sure that this is happening statewide to reduce the impact of bias. Those are three things. And then of course, close the school to prison pipeline. The juvenile court system is not the solution for addressing school-based behaviors and issues. And they may be tough, they may be difficult to deal with but if that is the case, we find resources, we find that we invest in programming that helps schools resolve those issues in-house and not refer non-criminal issues, non-issues of public safety to the juvenile courts. Thank you for those great suggestions. So we're gonna turn now to the second half of our program here before the Q&A, which is our third part and ask some questions of each of our other guests tonight. First, we're going to turn to Justice Clement of the Michigan Supreme Court. And I wanna ask you about a study that came out in the middle of last year. You soon after joining the court a few years ago, you asked for this particular study or a study to look into the legal representation for juveniles in Michigan, which actually Grace referenced in her remarks to have better trained attorneys. And the results of that study were released and it highlighted the poor quality of legal representation for children charged with delinquency. It also pointed out a whole bunch of other problems stemming from some of the issues already discussed tonight. Can you discuss some of the data problems in Michigan and the other issues raised by the report that you're most concerned about and what you've seen as the barriers toward reform in Michigan? Well, thank you, Jody. And thank you for having me as part of this panel. We were extremely fortunate to have the National Juvenile Defender Center come to Michigan to do an assessment and report of juvenile defense in Michigan. And what we saw was an overarching theme of lack of data and some recommendations to help us address that. So some of those recommendations were included a system of state oversight and enforcement, very similar to what we've done with the adult indigent defense system. And that would include state standards for juvenile defense. It would also include adequate funding for juvenile defense services. And one of the things that I thought was the most important was a statewide system for collecting juvenile defense data, establishing performance metrics and research to assist all of our local partners in meeting the constitutional requirement that youth have quality representation. And while this report focused primarily on juvenile defense, what it really did was shed light on what all juvenile justice stakeholders in Michigan really know is the problem and that is the need for data to assist us with improving juvenile justice. And as Dua and Jason have both mentioned, a lot of that data is already out there. The problem is that it is, we have a decentralized system. And so there's no comprehensive central system that collects all of this data. We have counties in courts using various case management systems. We have limited uniform requirements for what data needs to be collected and in what format. And because of that, we are at a disadvantage to be able to look at juvenile justice as a whole and to look at all of our counties and see what is working well and where and what we need to improve on. And why that matters is because we know that we have a lot of courts and a lot of counties out there that are doing tremendous things and have made great strides in juvenile justice. But without being able to take that data and compare it to our other counties and even drill down, as Jason recommended, even more localized than that, we really can't see, we can't really identify what those issues are and how to address them because where we know things are going well, those are the things that we should be using as our best practices and spreading those around the state. And so data is really the key and what we need to be focusing on. Thankfully, we are doing that and we've already started that discussion in this kind of transitions into our barriers to reform and what I would say first and I think most importantly is that juvenile justice needs to be a top priority. We focus on the adult criminal system, we focus on our child welfare system, but investment and change on those two ends of the spectrum without also prioritizing our juveniles is doing a tremendous to service to the entire system that we have. We know that for so many of the kids in the juvenile justice system, they're the same families that have been part of the child welfare system and part of the same families that are going into the adult criminal system if they aren't personally going into the adult criminal system. We have tremendous stakeholders in our juvenile justice system. I am constantly impressed with everyone that I work with in the juvenile justice system. They are incredibly passionate. We have judges around the state that are incredibly passionate care about helping kids and have done so many things in their counties to reduce delinquency, utilize evidence-based treatment programs and community-based services with a focus on restorative services instead of punishment and they know that it works in their counties. They have the data that shows that. We need to be able to take all of that and put that together so that we can help areas where they're not seeing that happen. I also think that we really need to focus on prevention and alternative approaches. Just like we do in child welfare and our problems solving efforts. We know that that truancy leads to delinquency. So before a child is even engaging with the juvenile justice system, there's safety nets in place where we can see that if they're not going to school, there's probably a problem there and we can get services on the prevention side. And most importantly, data and funding. Like I said, we've already started the discussions on how to develop a system to collect all this data, but it will require funding. It will require support from our tremendous champions in the legislature like Senator Santana who you're gonna hear from in a little bit, Representative Leitner who is already working on legislation for juvenile defense. But we need this to be a priority for the executive branch as well as the legislature, the judiciary and all of our local partners. I know that there's a lot of things especially around the country and in Michigan that we're focusing on right now. But I really feel that today is the time to get started on prioritizing juvenile justice. Everyone is ready. And I think if you look at the panel that you have here and the discussion that we're having that I think that is really highlighted. So if everybody's ready and now is the time if you could snap your fingers and have up to three changes that could happen right away, what would they be? So data, I would love to have a statewide data system and I'd like to get moving on that yesterday. So that is definitely number one because it's gonna help drive so many of our decisions and the changes that need to happen. And like I said, I want this to be a priority across the board statewide and at all local levels. I know that there's a lot of local stakeholders that are prioritizing this, but this needs to be driven from the top down. And then I think we need to improve our collaboration with stakeholders. We need to get the courts, the counties, prosecutors, law enforcement, communities, foundations, mental health organizations. We need to bring everybody to the table to collaborate on what is working and what's not. And I think if we bring them together, we can drive those changes that you've already heard from Grace and from Jason and from Dua and I know that you're gonna hear from our next speakers. Thank you. Thank you for all those suggestions and I guess we'll see if what happens, right? So turning to Senator Santana, Justice Clemente just talked about how juvenile justice has not been a priority and last year, criminal justice reform was a priority for Michigan. The Republicans, the Democrats agreed, but it was almost all the changes were at the adult level. There was the raised the age where the age of juveniles was raised from 17 to 18. And there were some other changes, but really there hasn't been this strong focus on the juvenile system. Why do you think there hasn't been that focus? Well, Jody, Grace, thank you for sharing your story and being a voice for so many juveniles across Michigan and across this country. I think that we have made great progress with raised the age and also with the juvenile justice bills that we were able to pass through the legislature last during the lame duck session. But as you mentioned before and some of the speakers on this panel have mentioned, when it comes to criminal justice reform collectively, I think that as adults, you have more of a voice. There's a lot of associations out here who are really pushing for this type of work to be done around our criminal justice reform system in Michigan. And I think so often that when you have adolescents who are interfacing with the juvenile justice systems, oftentimes they don't feel that they have a voice that they're being heard because they are adolescents. And so I think teenagers and just, being teenagers, being children. And so I think that oftentimes we're always considering the adults. But I think like moving forward, I think that we have heard those voices. We've heard from associations like MCYJ and also MCCD that are pushing these issues forward and making sure that they are a priority in the legislature. And I think that while we're on this trajectory making sure that we are reforming our system in Michigan, collectively juveniles also need to have those reforms as well to make sure that they have a brighter future also. Well, since you are in a position where you can be the voice or take action or change policy at work, no, of course not on your own, but you can lead those efforts. What are some changes that you would like to say be a priority? Yes, well, definitely there's quite a few changes that I would like to see. As mentioned before, one of the key challenges that we found during the raise the age bill package was that there was not data available at the state level when it came to our juvenile system. The state obviously with a healthy human service budget has an extensive budget and also has quite a few issues that we deal with within that budget and the CCF being one of those issues as well as some of our juvenile justice concerns. And so I think what has happened is that there hasn't been quite the oversight that is necessary to make sure that these issues that are being supported at the county levels have the oversight necessary to make sure that there is accountability at those levels as well. So I think that's something that we really have to take a look at moving forward when it comes to our criminal justice system and juvenile justice specifically. Also, as mentioned before, all 83 counties have a decentralized system which was really something that every jurisdiction pretty much is doing things the way they see fit and so when those rapid ground services are necessary we don't see that oversight by our system in any kind of way. I also feel that, you know, I think that there needs to be more community-based resources. When I heard Grace speak today, she spoke that, you know, she wanted to feel listened to and I've kind of read her story as well. I just feel like there were many things that could have been done to make sure that maybe there was supports in a community for not only her circumstances, but many circumstances of those individuals who they've had violations of probation when it comes to rapid ground services, helping to support them in a community and make sure that we're investing in the values that are the things that are necessary for them, whether it be treatment, whether it be making sure that maybe there's family counseling to help with communication and things of that nature. Those are type of things that we need to invest in at the state level, not putting our children in detention centers unnecessarily. And, you know, I think through this pandemic we have seen where, you know, technology has definitely been unnecessary for our school children, but it's so difficult for them with the technology to really operate on a daily basis. And considering that we have seen statistics where girls specifically have, you know, at the ages of 10 to 14 have experienced depression because of the extensive amount of technology. These are all things that we need to be paying attention to. And I think that they're necessary for us to pay attention to in our justice system as well and making sure that our justice system has the necessary supports that they need in order to make these decisions as well. When we look at Michigan, as far as children who have been locked up for status offenses, we are, you know, the fourth in the nation for locking children up for status offenses and for nonviolent offenses as well. And just like Grace, who's a child of color, what we often find is that these circumstances at the school level are not being taken care of. So I think we need to have some more compassion when it comes to the school systems to make sure that we are mitigating the prison or school to prison pipeline. Making sure that, you know, there's conversations at the school level that it doesn't arise to the level of getting to the justice system. And I think that is very important to making sure that our children are getting what they need and that is necessary. You know, it's unfortunate that even still in Michigan, we have a lot of children who are being placed in the adult system as well when it comes to our MDOC. And that's something that's really unfortunate. Also, we should not be locking children up with adults and definitely diverting them when necessary to maybe facilities that are designated for juveniles. And so I will digress from there. I know there's much more to talk about, but I think the biggest thing that we need to do as a state is definitely take these issues on. Just as Elizabeth, or Justice Clement mentioned, you know, she's provided a study for this. I think we have the right people in this group to really facilitate those conversations and on the broader conversation. And I think that, you know, unfortunately the decentralizing of our system does not help to collect data. It does not help to provide for a standardized system across the state when it comes to being able to support the needs in our communities and throughout the criminal justice system. I think that that is something that we've discovered across the state that has been really monumental to being able to support these efforts. So with that said, I'll turn it back over to you. Well, thank you. You set it up really nicely for our next speaker, Washtenaw County Prosecutor, Ellie Savit. And Senator Santana talked about finding ways to not put children in detention centers. And that is something that since you took over the prosecutor's office really just a few weeks, well, like maybe a month ago now, you are already making changes to avoid having children in detention. You said that your office won't charge, criminally charged juveniles with tobacco or vaping or experimentation with marijuana or alcohol. And you cited Grace's case in making that announcement, which was broader than that, but your message was that juveniles need to be kept out of the juvenile justice system as much as possible. You're only one prosecutor, there are 83 of you, 83 county prosecutors in the state of Michigan. I'm wondering what kind of reaction you're getting from the other prosecutors in the state. And when it comes to barriers to reform, what are the barriers within the state prosecutor's offices, the county prosecutor's offices? Sure. And so I guess I'll start by talking about the reaction from the prosecutors in my own office because I just wanna give them a shout out. We have some phenomenal attorneys really caring in our juvenile division and they're really what makes these policies work. We can write them down on paper as much as we want, but we're blessed here in Washtenaw County to have folks who are committed to looking at things in a different way. With respect to my colleagues, my elected colleagues around the state, the truth of the matter is, and I think we need to be real about this, that prosecutors have historically been opposed to criminal justice reform, but with juvenile issues, I sense less resistance, less resistance than with some of these other issues. The Prosecuting Attorney's Association of Michigan did not oppose the raise the age legislation. I know that we've got some other colleagues of mine across the state that think about these issues in a similar way as I do, Carol Seaman in Ingham County, Karen McDonald who was recently elected in Oakland. But with prosecutors generally, I do think that it's going to be slow moving because largely prosecutors have historically been skeptical of changes to our criminal legal system, including our juvenile justice system. And one reason for that that I've sort of grown to appreciate really since taking office is just because of the types of cases that and the types of human experiences that you are seeing day in and day out as a prosecutor. The truth of the matter is one thing that I and I'm so honored to be on here with Grace tonight and the pro-publica story that initially highlighted the injustice of her case was phenomenal and appropriately sparked national outrage, but a story that I thought was equally important was the follow-up story about how since Grace has been out, she's been involved, she's been active, she's been connected with mentors, she's doing political organizing now. And that's really the types of things that ultimately in the long run are more effective interventions. We know this from the data, but the truth of the matter is unfortunately many of the actors in our criminal legal system, including prosecutors don't see that. They don't see the kid that's doing great because they didn't come in to the criminal legal system. They don't see the kid that, you know, maybe you exercised appropriate discretion. You said, we're declining this case. This is a school-based matter. It's not a job for the criminal legal system. And you never think about them again if they don't come back in through the criminal legal system. So I think it's important for all of us, not just prosecutors, to be highlighting these stories. These stories like Grace's of where we know a different approach worked better. Data can make people's eyes gloss over it. I'm a data guy and I love it, but it's not for everyone. And when you're sitting in a prosecutor's office and what you're thinking about is one kid that's coming through over and over and over again, right? You're not thinking about the many kids that aged out of sort of adolescent misbehavior that didn't need a juvenile justice intervention in the first place. And so by definition, you're never seeing them. And so I think forums like this are really important. I think personal stories like Grace's especially what's going on now, that's what's important too. And that's really how I think we can change minds of some people who may be naturally more skeptical of change. I know you're gonna ask me about my three things, right? So see. Yes. So I will echo what most other people on this call have said, data and resources. I want data on racial disparities in our juvenile justice system on where we are seeing black kids and kids of color being treated differently than white kids. We know the net outcomes on aggregate. I think we need much finer tuned data so we can eliminate that bias decision making. And it's gotta be systems level too, right? It starts in many ways outside of the juvenile justice system in terms of which kids are suspended and expelled. And for what and where our kids being referred to the juvenile justice system rather than having something being treated as a school-based matter. The second thing we need is many more programs and effective studies to really drill down into the effectiveness of intervention programs. But I really wanna highlight, you said I had other three. The third thing that I think is tremendously important which is we can talk all we want if you're a sort of reform-minded prosecutor like I am or you're somebody that's a criminal justice or a juvenile justice reform advocate about not criminalizing things and not addressing things in the juvenile justice system but then we need to address it in some way outside of the juvenile justice system. And we need resources to do that. And I will tell you, the data shows that what works are mentorship programs, are connections with caring adults, mental health treatment. If a kid is dealing with a mental health issue, potentially there's substance use treatment if that's an issue. But I will tell you what keeps me up at night in the juvenile system and in our adult system is we are going through right now in this country a infectious disease pandemic and that is going to be followed I think and we're already seeing the signs of it by a pandemic of mental health issues. We are seeing youth suicides rise, we're seeing sort of violent crimes based on happenstance rise, based on things like road rage, levels of depression are up and it's because we've all experienced and especially our kids a sort of collective trauma over the past year plus. And I'm very hopeful that we can think ahead a little bit because we are not going to punish our way out of that problem. We are not going to arrest our way out of that problem. We know from data that especially with kids it's going to make things worse. So I'm hoping that especially as the federal government is considering a stimulus to deal with this pandemic, they think ahead to the next pandemic that we are going to see of mental health related issues and put resources in place so we can address these issues outside of the criminal and juvenile justice system because that's ultimately what's going to change the game in the long term. And that's really interesting that you say that really important because you see now that I've been watching juvenile court hearings you see so frequently that mental health related issues are part of what's going on and they're discussed at almost every hearing I've been watching. So thank you for bringing that up. We're going to turn to our last panelists before the Q&A tonight and that is Professor Vandervoort at the University of Michigan. And one thing we talked about during the course of our reporting last year with Professor Vandervoort was this is very specific but the impact that fines and fees have on juveniles and their families people might not realize that in delinquency cases that juveniles in Michigan and other places are assessed different fees and fines. And I would love if you could talk about the impact that has on juveniles and their families you've been working with the juvenile justice co-founded the juvenile justice clinic you see these cases, you see the families. So if you could help us understand the impact and the landscape in Michigan and elsewhere if you can. Sure, so this is an issue that's emerging around the country. What we see in Michigan as has been suggested already wide variation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. So what we have seen cases where many cases where families have been charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for their children being removed from their care in place. So for example, in Grace's situation when she's placed in detention in some counties in Michigan families are charged anywhere from about 150 to $300 a day if their child is in detention or in a longer term placement. Some children are placed for a year or longer and they're charged in some instances hundreds of dollars a day for those placements. So there's wide variation. The thing that I see that's very problematic is I see trial judges who do not apply the law as it's written. They order, the law requires in Michigan that the court assess whether the family has the capacity to pay. And we have seen case after case after case where judges has simply not done that work. Court staff has not done that work. And so families, for example who are existing on some form of public assistance and I use that word existing knowingly. They're barely getting by being charged hundreds of dollars a day. And so one of the consequences of that is some of these families are having the wage earners garnished, wages garnished. Some of the families have had their tax returns intercepted and taken by the counties to pay what is now an accumulation of three, four, $500 in debt. And so as Jason pointed out has been mentioned a couple of times already this disproportionately impacts families of color. And what we know is in particular African-American families already have there's a huge wealth disparity in addition to an income disparity. And the families that we see often have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that follow these children into their adulthood. And it impairs the family's ability first of all to earn an income and to just pay their day to day and month to month expenses. But then also it impacts their ability as a family to accumulate wealth. And so it contributes to both the income disparity and the wealth disparity that we see in our society. So again, this leaves kids into their adulthood trying to pay these things off, these bills. And so that's the kind of a summary of what we see here in the system. The number of, again, there's wide variation. And a few years ago we won a case in the court of appeals because in Washtenaw County we were routinely charging every child $100 for a probation supervision fee. Contrary to the law, the law says you've got to look at every family individually and decide if that family has the ability to pay. So we challenge that. We won at the court of appeals level and we came back in the court instituted a policy of charging every kid $200. They have since backed away from that but you get the understanding that part of the thing, part of what's happening here I think is the tail is wagging the dog. We're bringing kids needlessly into the system and then we're saying, well, we've got to provide you services so we've got to charge you. And so very much like you saw in Ferguson, Missouri where the local courts were surviving in large part by imposing fees and fines on people, we see that here. We see that in the juvenile courts. Another thing that I want to just mention it's a little bit different issue but it again has huge financial impacts and that is restitution. In Michigan, families are being charged in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution and in many cases, tens of thousands of dollars in restitution. That's gonna require us to change our state constitution as well as our state legislation. So that's a big uphill battle that we have but that straps children with it. I have a client who was a partial scholarship to a big 10 university. He couldn't go because he got hit with $27,000 in restitution charges. So the money that he had saved, the court ordered him to pay in restitution. So he couldn't go to the college where he wanted to go. He ended up going to a community college. So he's making some progress in his life but we've really impaired that young man's ability to be a successful person as an adult. So that's what we see in terms of fees and fines. Thank you. And this is an issue that ProPublica is investigating and reporting on and we've just put a link in the chat. If you have information to share about this, there's a link there to do so. We are moving to the Q&A section. We have so many questions, wonderful questions and I'm gonna turn it over to Cynthia. Thank you, Jody. Okay, let's get right into it. Our first question is sort of a composite of things that we keep seeing from a lot of people here. So in certain cases where parents have lost control of their teenage children, the state has limited mechanisms with which to intervene. What support could be offered to parents having severe problems with children, especially those with learning disabilities and anxiety or depression? So I could say a little something about that. What I see in my practice is that we see a fair number of families where this is an issue, right? There's nothing unusual about children in their adolescence having emotional problems. A lot of that's just developmentally normative. Most juvenile delinquency is developmentally normative. That is to say almost every kid at some point in his or her minority when they're youth, they violate the law. They drank underage, they smoke weed. Kids violate the law. That's normative behavior. Almost every kid does it. The kids who get pulled into the system are pretty random. One of the ways kids get pulled into the system is their families don't have access to mental health treatment. They don't have access to in-home types of services like Justice Clement and I think Senator Santana were talking about. And so the only place to call is the police. And I wish I had a nickel for every time I had a parent say, I didn't want my kid arrested. I called the police because I wanted some help. What we need is not a 911 for the police, we need a 911 for a social worker if we had that. Or if we had social workers riding along with the police on these often come in as family disturbance kinds of calls, domestic violence is what a lot of these kids are charged with. So if we could expand mental health services, social support services in the community that would go a long way toward helping families and in not sort of labeling as criminal or delinquent what is entirely normative and developmentally understandable behavior. Thank you. Our next question sort of takes a sort of outside of Michigan view on this issue. What other states in the US have the same issues beyond Michigan? And are these issues found on the federal level? I mean, I think every state has these issues at some level. Michigan is certainly not the only state that deals with this. I think in some ways we are an outlier but every state struggles with exactly how do we provide services and supports to families? How do we, what's the appropriate cases to bring into the juvenile justice system? I'd like to see us do a radical experiment of doing nothing in the vast majority of juvenile justice cases. Because if we do nothing, there's actually research that says the best thing you can do with delinquent kids is absolutely nothing because the vast majority of delinquency is developmentally driven. It's kids outgrow delinquency all but probably around 5%. There are 5% that are serious and repeat offenders like Ellie Sabbath was speaking to or seriously violent offenders. Those are, that's a different set of kids and it's a very small group. The vast majority of delinquency is something that happens one time or two times and it's really low level kind of minor offenses of the sort you saw that brought grace into this system and then caught her up in this system in the way that it did. Okay, the next question is directed for Grace. Grace, what do you feel would have been a more appropriate response to help you get back on track rather than incarceration? Yeah, so I just feel like if I would have, I already had some family therapy, I had individual therapy and I really feel like if that would have just continued and the judge would have recognized them as for what they were, which was really helping me because we had made some major breakthroughs in the beginning of my family therapy, actually I believe a week before I had gone to court and been sentenced to our disposition to go to Children's Village. So I think if we were just allowed to or if not even allowed just provided with resources such as therapies and what, and therapies and like family therapies and just understanding in general, I think that would have been a better proposal than sending me off to Children's Village. Yeah. Thank you. Our next question is what systems of accountability are in place to weed out racially biased actions in the juvenile justice system, Benny? Far too few. Yes. I'll just say that we've had the opportunity again at the adult level to look at habitual offenses and just kind of see the disproportionate ways that people are sentenced across the state of Michigan. I think that that has to happen at the juvenile level as well. There has to be more accountability and standardization on looking at those numbers. But as mentioned before, we need to make sure that we're individualizing those support services for our communities, making sure that there are wraparound services for our children and within the community. And so, yes, there's really minimal data even when we looked at the raise the age bill package, one of the sticking points or the challenges that we faced was figuring out how many juveniles we had in the system that were at the age of 17 and being able to gather that data across the state. And so we had to create actually a fund to build in order to support figuring out how many 17-year-olds we have in the system. So it was really a challenge just getting that bill package completed at the state level took almost six years. But that speaks to what Frank just said is just that we don't have enough data and that's quite one of the reasons why this is such a challenge across the state of Michigan. Can I just add, one of the things that we see in the system is that at every level there's discretion, whether that's a school principal or teacher in the schools, whether it's a police officer in the streets or at the schools. And there needs to be some mechanism for reviewing discretion because what we know, for example, in schools is that African-American kids and specifically African-American boys, they're thrown out of school much more frequently and the ACLU in Michigan did a report several years ago now in which they looked at all of the kids who were suspended or expelled from schools in Michigan and a hugely disproportionate number of them were children of color, vastly, the vast majority were African-American boys. And most of those kids were not thrown out because they assaulted someone or they brought a weapon to school or they did some horrible thing. The vast majority of them were thrown out because some teacher, some principal decided they were insolent. They didn't like the way the kid looked at them. They didn't like the way the kid walked or talked or the way he wore his pants, literally. I can't tell you the number of children that I've worked with over the years who have been thrown out of school because they were listening to or reciting rap lyrics at school and some person, some teacher, some principal determined that they were dangerous and that they were making threats to people because they were singing rap songs. That's the kind of thing we need to have mechanisms to review that exercise of discretion because I don't know how you get the discretion out of the system, but there has to be a mechanism to review the exercise of that discretion at every level. And we just don't have that. And it's not effective. We have it in court systems, right? A trial judge makes a decision and we can go to the court of appeals. That takes a year and a half, typically, or something like that. And so, but we need effective review of exercise and discretion. Thank you. Our next question is from Melissa. She says, I imagine that COVID may have a big impact on Michigan state budget, confining youth is expensive, but the population is likely smaller now because of the pandemic than ever before. What can the state do to keep the numbers low and not go back to the old way of doing things? I can try to answer that. Oh, sorry, Senator. But investing in community-based alternatives using this opportunity while cases are low to look at ways that we can keep kids, halt new admissions or keep new admissions low and also work with schools or other community-based providers to, again, serve kids that can be effectively kept out of the system. And I honestly think to the best we can, the best possible, we should try to maintain the standard that was set with the executive order that the governor put out or issued during the pandemic. Limit confinement, limit out-of-home placement to kids who are in immediate or significant danger. There's no reason why we should have to return to what we had before the pandemic in that regard. Okay, thank you. Our next question is from Bill, who asked, what steps should be taken to improve the legal representation of children and delinquency cases? I'll take that one. We have a hundred page report outlining exactly what we need to do. And I think that we have the framework already because we've done it with the adult system and we know what it takes for quality representation. And we need to mirror a lot of that and bring that into our juvenile system. Too often I hear anecdotally that attorneys show up five minutes before a hearing. That's the first time meeting the child, spend limited time with them. We need to start on the front end and get attorneys that are trained and qualified. We need to pay them the same amount of money as attorneys that are working in the adult system. One of the unintended consequences of improving our adult criminal defense system was that we changed the pay for defense attorneys. And so a lot of good attorneys that were working in both systems ended up shifting over to the adult system and leaving the juvenile system. So we need to make sure that the juvenile defense system is on par with the adult system. And really what it comes down to is training and making sure that we're finding attorneys that want to do this work and understand how important it is and are making themselves available to their client from the very beginning of the case and seeing it all the way through up to the point of appeal and advising their client of their rights to appeal from once they're done with the case. May I just add one thing to what Justice Clement said? I completely agree with training, but I would say that we need to be training judges and we need to train them specifically in two areas. First of all, with regard to lawyers, too many judges think the job of a juvenile's lawyer is to do what is best for the child. That is not the role of the child's lawyer. The United States Supreme Court has spoken squarely to this issue more than 50 years ago and said that the lawyer's job is to investigate the case to conduct a skilled inquiry to determine what the facts of the case are, to ascertain whether the child has a legal defense and to present that defense to the court if one exists. I suggest that that has not at all different than the role of an adult criminal attorney. It's exactly the same role, except the problem is too many juvenile court judges think that your job as a juvenile's lawyer is to get the kid under the court's jurisdiction and to help the court help the child. That's not the role. And we need to, judges need to understand that. The second element that I think is really critical for training is that everybody in this system must be trained to understand adolescent development and understand it in much more detail than they do. Because when you start to understand adolescent development, you start to realize, again, that the vast, vast majority of what we haul into court and label as delinquent behavior is simply normative behavior that adolescents engage in. But what kids are getting brought into the system? It's poor children, it's children of color. It cannot be the case that white children from middle class and upper middle class families do not have exactly the same set of problems and concerns that poor children and children of color have. They have exactly the same developmental issues going on. The families have the same kinds of struggles. The only difference is access to services. The only differences are some of those kids are being labeled criminal and some of those kids are being labeled something else. And so that's a critically important element of what we've got to train people about. There's a lot of young people who are here tonight asking about what can young people do to support juvenile justice reform? So I guess I can answer this one. I feel like what I did as a juvenile, or yeah, as a kid, I went out and I looked, I honestly just looked up. I looked and I looked at what was around me. I suggest getting involved with any clubs that your school might have because I know a lot of schools have clubs for like justice or like they'll have African American clubs just to keep everyone in touch with situations. So I definitely, if your school doesn't have a club, then go ahead and make one. I mean, find some friends, find a teacher and make a club because I mean, that's how you really can start by getting involved in that aspect. And then like I said before, just looking for those organizations that will advocate for juveniles and maybe even talking to them about, you know, what they're doing and how they're doing it and if you can get involved and how you can get involved and just staying aware, honestly, that's just what I recommend. Thank you, Grace. Our next question is from Sandra. She asks, what data supports the generalization of Grace's case and the condemnation of the entire juvenile justice system in Michigan? So basically, you know, what supports ProPublica's reporting on this system? I'll try to take that one as best I can. There's been a lot of discussions tonight about how there is a lack of statewide data, a lack of data from the counties supporting, providing data to the Supreme Court administrative office, but there is some data available on the federal level from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. They do a one-day count of the kids who are in placement on a particular day every other year and we were able to look at the data from 2017 state by state and do an analysis at ProPublica to see where Michigan is compared to other states. And while most states across the country have moved away from detaining young people for probation violations, or they have new policies in the past few years, new laws, in Michigan, the numbers actually went up if we looked over time. So during that one-day count that I was talking about in October, 2017, there were 210 juveniles confined on that day for technical violations. During the first count, back in 1997, there were 144 juveniles who were confined on that day for technical violations. So we can't say, unfortunately, county by county because of everything that was discussed tonight about the lack of statewide data, but we can look and see that statewide, the number of juveniles committed for technical violations of probation is actually going up, not down. Can I add to about the condemnation comment? We, you've heard people on this panel praise juvenile court stakeholders say that there are people doing good work who care about kids, who are making local reforms in their jurisdictions to reduce out-of-home confinement. No one's condemning anybody. No one's demonizing anyone. What we're saying is that just like any other profession that interacts with people, you have to constantly evolve. You have to constantly improve. And especially when you're dealing with children, that's all, accountability and transparency is different than condemnation and demonization. That's all that we're saying. We can talk about the issues within the system without painting everyone with a bad brush, a broad brush. And actually, if you had the data, you wouldn't have to paint everyone with the same brush. So time for one more question. This is a question that sort of broadens the discussion beyond just the courts, but Panos, do you think broader public and governmental support for social services resources would help address root causes for this issue? I think absolutely. Again, the vast majority of the kids who come into our system are from poor families. That's just a truism. 75% of the kids who come into the juvenile justice system have mental health problems. Many children have learning disabilities, developmental disabilities. There's family dysfunction. So in the 60s, we closed mental health facilities on the theory that we were gonna get community-based mental health services. In this state, and I don't know about other states, from what I read about, this is a pretty consistent problem across the country. We have no viable mental health system. I think I spoke with Dua about this when she was talking with me about one of her articles. And that is, you know, when John Engler came into office in the, whenever it was, the 1990s, the early 1990s, I think it was, his first act as governor was to just start cutting away at our community mental health system. And it's been that way since that time. In our, you know, we just don't have the resources. So the resource of last resort is the police, your local detention center, your local county jail, how many articles, how many government reports have we seen in the last decade or 15 years where the largest mental health systems in the country are our county jails, followed by our prison system. So we've, you know, we've taken people out of, you know, we've taken away the mental health services at the community level and not replace them. And many of these individuals have ended up in our detention facilities. So yeah, you know, more resources at the ground level would be tremendously helpful. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry, was someone else gonna join? Yes, I was just gonna elaborate on what Mr. Vandervort said. I, you know, definitely that's something that we have been discussing at the state level, especially with our educators, because essentially our kids are in school throughout the day and being able to provide them with mental health training to identify when children are having issues or need some additional tender loving care. That is something that I'm definitely wanna do. But we also wanna make sure that, you know, moving into the future that we do have social support services right in our school systems as well, having nurses in our school systems or even having a community-based healthcare systems right in the schools will be definitely beneficial to helping to support our kids. But obviously through state budgets, we only have a certain amount of resources to help support all of these initiatives. But definitely I think that allocating those dollars in investment into our children is what is necessary to make sure that they don't end up in a circumstance where they're in front of the juvenile justice system. So we will continue to work on those efforts, but it does require a reallocation of how our dollars are being spent at the state level. Thank you. That's our time for tonight. I want to thank our speakers for this excellent conversation. Again, video of tonight's event will be available on ProPublica's YouTube channel at youtube.com slash ProPublica. We'll also email it to all of the registrants. If you'd like to share your story about a juvenile justice system, you can do that through our form at propublica.org slash fees. From all of us, thank you for joining and have a good night. Bye.