EDITORIAL: Strengthen probation option for juvenile offenders

New York's juvenile jails are abusive, costly and ineffective, according to a string of reports from state and federal officials, as well as national and international human rights organizations. Add to that litany of woe that there is not one full-time psychiatrist on staff at the jails, though hundreds of residents suffer from some sort of mental illness.

All that raises the question, what's the alternative? A key option is probation, which can provide necessary supervision and connect troubled children with the treatment and services they need, in the communities where they live.

But for that enlightened model to work, judges who sentence kids to the 28 jails must be confident that the probation system is up to the job. Right now, they don't believe it. Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of the state of New York, says confidence in the probation department would be bolstered if the legislature would shift responsibility for running it from the governor to the courts. The proposal deserves serious consideration.

Judges have done a good job connecting adults to services via drug courts, which rely on alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent addicts. Now it's time to do something similar for children. Working closely together, juvenile probation officials and family courts might be able to develop a wider range of alternatives for kids and make better use of those options.

If the important relationship between courts and probation is strengthened, the big winners would be kids. hN