Former Gov. Zell Miller is most often remembered for the monumental HOPE Scholarship that sent more Georgia students to college at a minimal cost. A report on the school-to-prison pipeline released Tuesday contends Miller also sent more teens to prison as a result of changes to the juvenile justice system that remain in place today.
The Southern Poverty Law Center report, “Only Young Once: Dismantling Georgia’s Punitive Youth Incarceration System,” cites Miller’s depiction of young super predators in his 1994 State of the State address. “These are not the Cleaver kids soaping up some windows,” said Miller, referencing the 1950′s and early 1960′s sitcom “Leave It to Beaver.” “These are middle school kids conspiring to hurt their teacher, teenagers shooting people and committing rapes, young thugs terrorizing whole neighborhoods — and then showing no remorse when they get caught.”
Fueled by such rhetoric, the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice now focuses less on the rehabilitation of young offenders, especially those of color, and more on punishing them, according to the report. Black youth are more than twice as likely to be charged with an offense compared to white counterparts and more than three times as likely to be charged as an adult.
The report chronicles the expansion over the decades of school zero-tolerance policies to minor infractions. According to the report: “Today, several Georgia school districts suspend students on the first offense of vaping, for example, with repeated offenses resulting in suspensions of up to 10 days. Across the state, there were 22,209 vape-related school disciplinary actions in the 2022-23 school year, an 18.6% increase from the previous year, while middle and high school students reported vaping slightly less during that same period.”
The report warns that criminalizing kids rather than getting them help doesn’t make Georgia safer, and points to the state’s own recidivism data. “According to the latest data available, one in four youth released from DJJ custody will reoffend within the year, with over one in three (35.1%) reoffending within three years of release. Of note, the three-year recidivism rate was nearly as high for youth arrested for misdemeanors (34.3%) as youth arrested for felonies (35.9%), implying that the legal system failed to be rehabilitative no matter the offense level,” states the SPLC report.
The SPLC offers several reform recommendations that will face resistance in a state Legislature anxious not to appear soft on crime.
Among them:
1. Georgia should raise the minimum age of youth incarceration and prosecution to at least 14 and stop charging and prosecuting 17-year-olds as adults. It should not jail teens in adult facilities.
2. Georgia schools should enforce fair and consistent due process hearings and end the use of zero-tolerance policies.
3. Georgia should not impose jail on children for nonviolent offenses, especially technical violations and minor drug offenses.
4. The state must offer more opportunities for diversion and more community-based alternatives to incarceration.
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