WASHINGTON — Arabella Guevara spent much of her adolescence paying for her mistakes.
She entered juvenile justice at the age of 13, after running away from home for the first time, in hopes of escaping a volatile relationship with her mother. Before long, running away escalated to petty theft, stealing cars, and breaking into homes. It took her almost two years in and out of juvenile detention centers, and many additional months still locked into the system through probation.
When her last probation period ended last year and her youth file was sealed as she turned 18, “it was like an entire chapter of my life was closed,” Ms Guevara said in an interview. “I was free.”
But before long, she started receiving monthly reminders that she was anything but. Bills totaling $60,000 in restitution owed for her crimes began pouring in, leaving the teen drowning in debt just as she began trying to get back on her feet.
Ms. Guevara, now 19, is one of thousands of teens and young adults across the country who are paying restitutions imposed by juvenile courts to compensate their victims for losses and damages related to their crimes. But a new report examining the practice argues that many are paying for a broken system – a system that often derails the lives of young offenders for whom the juvenile system was created to rehabilitate, while delaying or even refusing compensation to their victims.
The report, published Thursday by the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia legal advocacy and advocacy group, sheds light on a seldom-researched process that can trap juvenile offenders in a perpetual cycle of indebtedness to society.
Ms. Guevara has been off probation for over a year; she has had no encounters with the police. She is the mother of a newborn boy and works at a advocacy organization in her hometown, San Jose, California, to help at-risk youth stay out of the criminal justice system.
“I have to pay for a crime I’ve already paid for, and I can’t afford it,” said Ms. Guevara. “It’s as if society has considered us unworthy of redemption.”
While imposing an equally heavy fines and surcharges on juvenile offenders and their families has attracted the attention of policymakers in recent years, lawyers and advocates say the restitution system has proved more difficult to reform. That’s partly because that system was built on the wrong premise, they say.
“The theory of restitution is to make the victim whole, and the child should also be taught a lesson that their actions have consequences,” said Nicole El, the assistant chief of the Children and Youth Justice Unit in the public prosecutor’s office. defender of Philadelphia. “What it does in practice is financially cuff children and their families.”
The Juvenile Law Center report, which examined juvenile restitution laws in all 56 states and US territories, does not quantify how many juveniles owe restitution from year to year. But it found a patchwork of policies that the report’s authors described as delivering “justice by geography”, burdening poor youth with little or no income with debts that many will never pay or pay off. And while the system was created in the 1960s as a way to provide an alternative to prison for mostly white juvenile offenders, it now largely burdens poor, young people of color, who are over-represented in the juvenile justice system.
Every juvenile court across the country has the right to order restitution — usually imposed for crimes such as property damage and theft — but the way amounts are determined varies wildly, as does enforcement, the report finds.
Eleven states and territories require refunds when a quantifiable damage is found, while the rest leave it to a judge’s discretion. Only five states and three territories limit the restitution a juvenile delinquent can be ordered, the report finds. Those who can’t pay eventually face a range of penalties — including incarceration, extended probation and the inability to erase their data — that can leave young people entangled in the system well beyond the length of their sentences. According to the report, juvenile courts in Washington state can retain jurisdiction over juveniles until they turn 28, extending a restitution sentence for 10 years for recovery purposes.
But the report also pointed to an equally worrying outcome: the system rarely works as intended for crime victims themselves. In states reporting refund collections, none reported that more than a third of such payments were actually collected. A study cited in the report found that as many as 77 percent of all refunds ordered are not collected.
Fourteen jurisdictions require refunds to be paid to third parties, such as government agencies and insurance companies, while others require youth to deposit into state victim compensation funds, which are difficult for many victims to access.
Victims’ rights organizations also see shortcomings in the system. The National Center for Victims of Crime said in a statement that while it believes that financial compensation is an important part of the “recovery process” for crime survivors, it also believes that “imposing high restitution costs on minors who law enforcement can inadvertently cause more.” harm by erecting barriers to release and services.”
“In addition,” the statement said, “we know that the majority of youth involved in justice have a history of trauma and victimization, and a major financial commitment can do even more harm. We would encourage communities to come together.” working with both survivors and juvenile justice involved to determine a process that is fair and restorative for all parties.”
The Juvenile Law Center is advocating for several reforms, including alternatives such as diversion programs with a restorative justice approach and expanding the eligibility of state victims’ compensation funds.
Maine passed legislation in 2019 that reformed its youth restitution system and is showing results, legal experts say. The new statutes now assume that people under the age of 16 cannot pay a refund, make it possible to reduce or wipe out a minor delinquent’s refund if their circumstances change, and require payments to go directly to victims instead. from to companies such as insurance companies.
As a result, juvenile delinquents in their 20s have been able to leave the youth system after having their refund balance waived, said Christopher Northrop, a clinical professor at the University of Maine School of Law who also runs a legal aid clinic that helped advocate for the changes. . Younger offenders, who are allowed to perform community service and other restorative justice activities in lieu of payment, have seen their cases resolved more quickly.
“It’s eliminated the side effects of systems engagement for young people so they can move on with their lives,” said Jill Ward, an adjunct professor at the law school and director of the Maine Center for Juvenile Policy and Law.
More than 30 states do not require courts to assess whether a young person can pay. Some expressly prohibit them from doing so, which the report says can pose crippling obstacles for young people transitioning into adulthood. They can seize wages, including from their commissioners’ accounts while in juvenile detention and from their salary when they are employed.
Some laws allow unpaid refunds to accrue interest and turn into a civil liability, which in turn can wreak havoc on credit scores and other public records with consequences.
Ultimately, the report concluded: “This means that a child from a wealthy family who can easily afford the restitution will have a clean slate if they leave the system, while a child from a poor family is stuck with a criminal record of juvenile justice involvement for no reason.” other reason than poverty.”
In some states, such as California, where Ms. Guevara lives, the financial responsibility rests with the parents if a young person is unable to pay.
Since she was released from juvenile detention, Ms. Guevara has occasionally lived with her mother; although their relationship has remained strained, they have survived homelessness and eviction together, and Ms. Guevara did not want to burden her further.
After receiving notices threatening to sue them both, she began paying $7 a month to the state, which she can afford while working part-time for $20 an hour and paying her bills.
Her refund payments should cover medical bills for injuries sustained by a victim while trying to prevent Ms. Guevara from stealing her car; fees for changing security systems and locks in the homes she invaded; and damage to the cars she stole.
The philosophy that “you commit the crime, you pay the fine” is ubiquitous in courts, lawyers say, but it undermines the whole point of a system that is supposed to be redeeming rather than punitive, as the adult system is, Ms. said El.
She and other public advocates often find themselves balancing trying to advocate for their clients, she said, many of whom come from households with incomes less than $10,000 a year. “We don’t want victims to be thousands and thousands of dollars short — we’re human beings like everyone else — but we also represent children,” Ms El said. “And is it reasonable that children can repay thousands of dollars? It’s not.”
In studies cited in the report, interviews with victims eligible for restitution show that very few seek monetary compensation from juvenile offenders.
In addition, state-reported data reviewed by the Juvenile Law Center shows that victims who do seek restitution from juvenile offenders rarely succeed in collecting them. For example, in a 2017 study conducted in Alabama, only 15 percent of youth-related refunds were ultimately collected.
Ms. Guevara said she often thinks of her victims, especially an elderly man whose car she stole. She later found out it was a retired sheriff. He visited her in a juvenile detention center and was so disturbed to see her in chains that he requested that they be removed.
The former sheriff, sitting across from her, who declined to be interviewed for this article, said he just wanted to know what had happened in her life that brought her to that night, and a promise from her that she would work to to get her back on her feet. path.
Today, she said, it feels increasingly elusive to keep that promise.
The two-bedroom apartment that Ms. Guevara shared with her mother and four others had recently been feeling too crowded and tensions were running high. Determined not to expose her son to the tumult that characterized her own childhood, she set out again.
The same week she became homeless, her refund was abruptly increased to $100 a month — or, by Ms. Guevara’s calculation, four packs of diapers and three baby food.
“I was doing well, I was just trying to do the right thing, and it’s not enough for them,” she said. “It’s like I’m locked up again.”