State law leads to violent juvenile offenders being released from youth corrections, according to councilman
An Aurora city councilman says a young girl would still be alive today if not for a state law allowing violent juvenile offenders back on the street.
That law capped the number of juvenile detention beds in the state at a time when youth crime is skyrocketing.
More than 1,000 teenagers were arrested for violent crimes last year, a 40% increase over 2021.
But the Division of Youth Services has only 215 juvenile detention beds statewide. That's led to dangerous kids being released to make room for more dangerous kids.
Aurora city councilman Dustin Zvonek, says one of those kids is a 15-year-old, who stole an SUV and crashed into a truck carrying a family of four. The family was critically injured and a 12-year-old girl was killed.
The 15-year-old was already facing felony charges for a separate crime. Zvonek says the teen would have been behind bars if not for the state cap on juvenile detention beds.
"This cap is literally costing people their lives," he said.
In 2003, the state had 479 beds for juvenile offenders, but the legislature has steadily lowered that number over the years and capped it at 215 in 2021.
"We are up against that cap all across the state every single day," said 18th Judicial district attorney John Kellner.
His district is the largest in the state with 1.3 million residents, but only has 37 beds for youth offenders. Every week, he says, they're forced to decide who is least dangerous to release.
"We're not talking about minor crimes. We're talking about burglary, armed robbery, car-jacking, murder, attempted murder," Kellner said.
The cap not only hurts the community, but kids who, without consequences, often go on to re-offend.
"We're seeing older gang members put guns in the hands of juveniles because they know the consequences for a young person with a gun are less serious if non-existent at times," Kellner said.
The Division of Youth Services says, across the state, the number of kids arrested for violent crimes has increased every year since 2019, even as beds have decreased.
"We have a justice system for juveniles that doesn't acknowledge this type of violent behavior is prevalent," Zvonek said.
He says lawmakers need to lift the cap altogether.
"There's no reason an arbitrary cap on the number of beds should require us to put them back into the community. If this policy hadn't been in place a 12-year-old would be alive and a family would not have sustained life-altering injuries," Zvonek said.
Zvonek says the cap is also impacting Aurora Police Department's ability to implement a program called Focused Deterrence, which has been successful around the country in preventing high-risk kids from engaging in criminal activity.
"Our police department, our sheriff's department, they know who these kids are and with focused deterrence it's an intentional effort to monitor them, to track them, to make sure they're not committing the violent crimes we're seeing. But certainty of penalty is key in its success and with the cap that certainty of penalty is not there," Zvonek said.
Zvonek plans to draft a letter to legislative leadership asking that the cap be removed.
The Division of Youth Services is recommending it be raised from 215 beds to 237, a 10% increase.
The Colorado District Attorneys' Council will take up the issue next week.
