The Comparative Efficiency of Mississippi’s Models of Youth Court Adjudication
Executive Summary
Introduction
The PEER Committee reviewed the relative efficiency of the models of youth court adjudication in Mississippi to determine whether a particular model is more efficient than the others.
In addition, the report also addresses two related matters:
Background
Youth courts are responsible for adjudicating cases in which a minor has been accused of committing an act that would be considered criminal if committed by adults, acts associated with the status of minority (e. g., running away), and cases in which the minor’s best interests would be served by court intervention to protect the child from abuse or neglect.
At present, Mississippi has several models of adjudication for matters heard in youth court.
As of July 1, 2014, outside of the City of Pearl, all youth court matters are either heard in county courts or by youth court referees appointed to perform judicial functions for the chancery court.
The Efficiency of Mississippi’s Youth Court Adjudication Models
The costs of adjudicating youth court referrals (i. e., investigation, prosecution, and judging) are the costs upon which this report’s analysis is based. For the period reviewed, PEER calculated weighted average costs per referral of $143 and $178 for selected counties using the county court model and referee model, respectively.
Based on PEER’s sample of eleven counties, the principal cause for the difference in costs is related to the relative costs of Department of Human Services’ Division of Family and Children’s Services staff assigned to the counties. Actual adjudicators’ (i. e., judges’) costs and clerks’ costs do not materially differ between referee and county court models.
The Administrative Office of the Courts’ Database and Case Management System
State law requires that youth courts utilize a uniform tracking system. The Administrative Office of the Courts has implemented an information management system—MYCIDS--that was intended to assist youth court administrators in monitoring the progress of cases.
In conducting this review, PEER had hoped that MYCIDS could be used exclusively to measure total referral (i. e., caseload) and performance of the youth courts. However, PEER learned that not all cases involving abuse and neglect are reported in MYCIDS. The Department of Human Services Division of Family and Children’s Services uses its own program reporting service, the Mississippi Automated Child Welfare Information System (MACWIS), for monitoring abuse and neglect cases for federal compliance purposes. When such cases are entered into MACWIS, they are often not entered into MYCIDS.
In addition to the lack of complete intake information, the MYCIDS system is limited by its end-users’ possible misunderstanding and operation of the system itself. MYCIDS has no universal field definitions, its information sometimes conflicts with information in corresponding paper files, and some data files are inconsistently maintained. The MYCIDS system could address these issues through the use and training of court intake officers and the implementation of compliance audits.
While the MYCIDS system is evolving and represents a major step forward in providing a tool for managing youth court resources, its weaknesses result in incomplete information that limits MYCIDS’s usefulness as a management tool.
Follow-Up on Service Delivery Issues
PEER’s 2007 report (Juvenile Justice in Mississippi: Status of the System and a Strategy for Change) addressed issues related to program service disparities at the local level. The report drew conclusions about the broader range of services found at the local level when county courts function as youth courts rather than referee courts. PEER followed up on the service delivery issues presented in the 2007 report with fieldwork in the eleven sampled counties.
PEER’s 2007 conclusion that a continuum of service for adjudicated youth is not available in all counties is still true today. Although state law requires that each Mississippi county be served by an Adolescent Offender Program (AOP), according to the Department of Human Services, only forty-seven counties have access to an AOP. PEER found disparities in other services available to youth in the counties sampled for this review (see pages 23 through 26 of the report).
Several factors contribute to the disparity of services among counties. Noncompliance with the AOP mandate, the presence of a vital not-for-profit sector willing to assist families in some counties, and aggressive and creative county youth court judges who independently seek grants for services in their counties all contribute to the condition wherein some counties have more services than others.
Recommendations
Further, the AOC should study the disparities in service delivery for youth courts and consider developing a clearinghouse of best practices that youth courts can follow in seeking additional grants and support services for assisting youth in areas of the state that do not have adequate services. To this end, the AOC should review current law on AOPs to determine what changes should be made to the law regarding the availability of AOPs in each county.