RICHMOND, Va. — Who should oversee Virginia's Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), which is responsible for serving more than 3,000 court-involved youth every day? That was the question at the center of the latest study from the General Assembly's research arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC).
Currently, DJJ falls under the purview of the public safety secretary, but advocates have argued that transferring DJJ to the health and human resources secretariat would improve access to services since behavioral health is a big focus of the rehabilitative process. In a presentation to lawmakers on Wednesday, JLARC analyst Brittany Utz said the commission's study proved otherwise.
“I think some of us had an instinct that HHR (health and human resources) would be a better place for juvenile justice. The concern was that on the public safety side, folks in charge of running the programs might be a little too focused on crime and punishment and maybe not completely buy into the idea that youth are truly in need of services," Delegate Marcus Simon (D-Fairfax) said.
In response, Utz said, "In speaking with DJJ leadership and staff, it was apparent to us that they do still have a big focus on rehabilitation."
According to the presentation, more than 70% of court-involved youth do not end up becoming detained or committed in a juvenile detention or correctional facility. Rather, most will receive rehabilitative services through community-based resources that are determined by court intake specialists. JLARC found those services are wide-ranging, have increased in availability over the years, and are delivered in a timely manner.
However, JLARC could not speak to the effectiveness of those programs due to limited data. That said, Utz acknowledged that juvenile arrests have decreased in Virginia, a trend seen nationwide.
For youth who are detained or committed in facilities, JLARC said they're "supposed" to be receiving rehabilitative services to include anger management, substance abuse treatment, and family therapy. But in 2021, a separate JLARC study found the services offered in detention centers were "ill equipped to provide fully effective rehabilitative programs" and the rehabilitative programming at Virginia's only youth prison for convicted juveniles, Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center, was "less than fully effective and unlikely to reduce reoffending."
Four years ago, JLARC presented recommendations to improve that programming, such as strengthening training of employees who run the programs and taking actions to mitigate staffing concerns, but JLARC found DJJ has still not fully implemented them.
JLARC's findings further stated that staffing shortages at Bon Air may continue to impact the delivery of rehabilitative services. Utz revealed that Bon Air operated at a 51% staff vacancy rate last year, a statistic DJJ had previously declined to publicly reveal.
“DJJ has told us that their primary staffing challenges are with their security positions and that they do not have the same recruitment and retention challenges with the staff that are providing the rehabilitative services," Utz said.
A separate study by independent consultants released in Spring 2024 also found that staffing shortages were hindering rehabilitative programming at Bon Air, and several advocates, legislators, and board of juvenile justice members have been raising concerns in recent months about a perceived lack of rehabilitative services at the facility. Those concerns have prompted a special review by the state inspector general's office which is expected to result in a report to be published later this year. Because those issues are being probed by the inspector general's office, Utz said JLARC's 2025 study did not focus on Bon Air's challenges.
Additionally, the General Assembly directed DJJ to publish a report analyzing its programming and staffing capabilities by December 2024. But Utz said that report still has not been published, which now makes it six months late.
Ultimately, JLARC did not recommend transferring oversight of DJJ from public safety to health and human resources. Researchers found the services provided in both secretariats are similar, and DJJ's existing services are specifically designed to reduce the risk of reoffending. Stakeholders interviewed for the report stated they experience few problems coordinating services with other health agencies.
Utz said there's no national consensus on the best placement for juvenile justice responsibilities. Half of states put their juvenile justice agency under human services, while the other half places it under public safety or makes it an independent agency.
JLARC concluded that switching oversight would have little to no benefit and possibly even harmful impacts such as diminishing the public safety aspect of DJJ's mission and causing the agency to get "lost in the shuffle" since the health secretary already oversees more agencies than public safety.
Governor Youngkin's public safety and health secretaries, Terry Cole and Janet Kelly, sent a joint letter to JLARC, agreeing with the commission's findings.
"PSHS and HHR are largely aligned with JLARC’s findings and recommendations. We agree that DJJ already provides a comprehensive array of rehabilitative services – many of which are comparable to those offered by HHR agencies. However, DJJ is uniquely positioned to deliver these services more efficiently and responsively due to its direct engagement with court-involved youth. We also agree that both DJJ and HHR currently maintain a productive and collaborative working relationship serving court-involved youth who receive services from both DJJ as well as HHR agencies," the letter stated.
At the conclusion of Wednesday's presentation, Del. Tony Wilt (R-Rockingham) asked Utz, “Could I summarize your report, your presentation, in saying that our current processes, current systems in place, are doing a very good job of taking care of our youth, helping them with rehabilitation, so forth, and also helping take care of our communities, keeping them safe?”
Utz responded, “We found that youth do have access to services which can help reduce the likelihood of them reoffending. I think our ultimate conclusion of it not being beneficial to transfer to HHR is based on the fact that they would not get better access to services through HHR agencies.”
JLARC presented some alternative options to changing the purview such as creating a cabinet-level coordinator position, increasing funding for community services, and taking action on JLARC's DJJ recommendations from 2021 that remain unimplemented.
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