When Reform Falls Short

1
When Reform Falls Short

• JDAI Conference
• New Orleans, LA
• November 29, 2006

Orlando L. Martinez
2
Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice A review

• The Cult of Collaboration
• Short-Term Shackles
• Distrust of Democracy
• Technocratic Tendencies
• Plaque Passion

3
The Cult of Collaboration

• Changing the State Juvenile Detention system in
  Georgia is difficult because of so many
  stakeholders
• Georgia, pop. 8.5 M
• 159 Counties
• 180 State Representatives
• 56 State Senators

4

• 10 Judicial Districts
• 49 Judicial Circuits
• 52 Full time Juvenile Judges
• 41 Part time Juvenile Judges
• 10 Full time Associates
• 19 Part Time Associates
• 6 Superior Court Judges who handle JJ

5

• The operation of Juvenile Detention is the
  responsibility of the GA Department of Juvenile
  Justice
• YDC 4
• Contracted 5
• RYDC 22
• 4500 Employees

6

• This situation has helped generate the cult of
  collaboration, which requires all the
  stakeholders to be brought to the table for
  negotiation of a mutually agreeable solution.
• Nothing could more effectively guarantee the
  failure of significant change than making it
  contingent of the sign-off of all the parties
  invested in the status quo.

7
Short-Term Shackles

• Notion that progress should be quickly and
  clearly discernable over the short term.
• Significant change, however, is highly unlikely
  to occur over the short term, particularly within
  the four year framework set for most state
  initiatives.
• Change of Leadership is central to the failure of
  many reforms.

8
Distrust of Democracy

• Reluctance to engage seriously in promoting
  political change.
• Advocacy is clear simple. It is not the neat,
  orderly policy making of professional experts
  over the uncontrollable political problems that
  break out so we opt not to trigger the sort of
  unrest by raising questions about the basic
  fairness or effectiveness of our systems.
• Delinquent Children and their families have few
  advocates in Georgia.

9
Technocratic Tendencies

• Once public policy is reconceived as a series of
  tidy, manageable technical problems amenable to
  applied expertise, there is little chance of
  venturing too far outside the lines of the status
  quo in a search for solutions.
• Proposals for reform focused on capacity
  building not on challenging the authority of
  detention practice itself.

10
Plaque Passion

• Legislators, Judges and Administrators are
  persuaded that their objectivity and rationality
  give them an uncluttered view of the public
  interest.
• This self-understanding is reinforced by the
  growing display of plaques and awards on office
  walls.

11

• Since the most prestigious awards come from the
  leading institutions of the status quo, a passion
  for plaques severely limits the amount of change
  generated.
• To generate change, more often than not it is
  necessary to provoke serious opposition. There
  are few awards for that.