Missouri Division of Youth Services wins innovation award
Published Sept. 18, 2008
Missouri was formally recognized last week for its innovative focus on rehabilitation over incarceration for juveniles.
On Sept. 9, Missouri's Division of Youth Services was named the recipient of the 2008 Annie E. Casey Innovations Award in Children and Family System of Reform after being chosen from an initial pool of more than 1,000 government programs.
The prize, in addition to $100,000, is awarded each year by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government as a part of the Innovations in American Government Awards Program.
When Julie Boatright Wilson, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, visited Missouri earlier this year to evaluate the program employed by the DYS, known as the "Missouri Method," she discovered a system of juvenile justice that resembled college living more than imprisonment.
Wilson said the facilities provided youths with residence hall-like rooms, pleasant eating areas and classrooms in addition to professional therapy and vocational training.
Instead of being monitored by armed guards, adolescents are attended to by a highly trained staff that is oriented toward helping youth move toward adulthood, Wilson said.
"One of the impressive manifestations of their commitment is the creativity with which they approach the development of programs for education, career discovery and personal development," she said.
Gov. Matt Blunt said the success of the DYS has been the product of a government focused on the success of Missouri's children.
"The Division of Youth Services received award as an exemplary model of government innovations and representative of the kind of innovations we have enacted throughout state government over the last four years," Blunt stated in a news release Friday.
Despite the recent success of the "Missouri Method," the system, which has been in place since the 1980s, was not always so admirable.
Douglas Abrams, a law professor at MU and author of "A Very Special Place in Life: The History of Juvenile Justice in Missouri," said the Missouri system of juvenile justice once faced many of the same problems other state systems face today.
"The old system was poorly managed and funded," Abrams said. "Children were being beaten by fellow inmates and guards, and there were reports of guards dealing drugs. Missouri was not a pleasant situation and it changed 180 degrees."
Today, Adams said, "Missouri is the acknowledged shining light."
Multiple states, including Arkansas, California, Georgia and Louisiana, and the District of Columbia, had shown interest in replicating the Missouri model before Missouri received the award. Yet the level of success reached by Missouri - as evidenced by a statewide recidivism rate estimated at less than 10 percent - has yet to be replicated.
Wilson said the DYS owes much of what its program has accomplished to Missouri's judges, who have avoided incarceration of approximately 75 percent of convicted youths in favor of rehabilitation programs and its advisory board, which consists of judges, former lawyers, government officials and citizens.
"The members of the advisory board are very committed," Wilson said. "They spend a lot of time in the legislature, helping people to understand how this works, why it works, and why it's important to keep Missouri moving in this direction."
Wilson said the "Missouri Method" remains imperfect in certain areas, such as parental involvement and staff capacity for keeping data.
But the DYS, Wilson said, is aware of these shortcomings and is working to correct them. The DYS plans to use the $100,000 from the Innovations Award, as well as the help of students from Harvard University, to bolster the program.
As Missouri works to improve, however, DYS remains at the top.
"No one has gotten as far as Missouri by any means," Wilson said. "There is no other state that really comes close to doing what Missouri is doing."