By MIKE SALINERO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 27, 2011
Updated: November 27, 2011 - 3:03 PM

TAMPA --

Now that Hillsborough County has adopted a civil citation program that officials hope will keep more juveniles out of courts and detention, a task force is looking at ways to assess youthful offenders and their families so they can get help.

The Juvenile Justice Task Force, which began meeting in February 2009, completed the first stage of its work this summer with an agreement to expand the civil citation program from schools to all county jurisdictions.

County Commissioner Kevin Beckner spearheaded the group's creation in an attempt to reduce the disproportionate number of minorities referred to the juvenile justice system.

The civil citation is available to juveniles who commit first-time misdemeanors such as shoplifting, vandalizing property, fighting or continually disrupting school functions and events.

Punishment entails some type of sanction short of detention and no fewer than five hours a week of community service until the child completes the program. Successful completion precludes the stigma of a criminal record that could hurt the youth's future choices of employment or service in the military.

"This process addressees the crimes very quickly," said Kristin Schillig, court operations manager for the county's juvenile diversion program. "Youth are not impacted by a long-term criminal record offering them more opportunity for a productive and successful future."

Schillig said 240 children have chosen the civil citation path since the countywide program was implemented June 1.

Experts say civil citations keep youth who make mistakes from reoffending, thus increasing their chances for a productive life while saving taxpayers' money through reduced court, detention and probation costs. Floridians pay $280 a day for a juvenile in detention, based on a formula set by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

Even more potential savings are possible if the civil citation prevents juvenile offenders from continuing on to prison, where one inmate costs taxpayers $20,000 per year of incarceration.

"By reducing juvenile crime, over time, the goal is to reduce the number of individuals who become career criminals and are committed," said a report released in September by the county's Juvenile Justice Task Force.

"These efforts save tax dollars that can be reinvested in education … and other initiatives to help our youth become more constructive and productive citizens."

Beckner said the task force will next work on developing an assessment process for troubled children and their families so that they can be referred to appropriate services.

"As you read through the (task force) report, 40 percent of the kids acting out are doing it because of issues going on in the family structure," he said.

Though turning around a dysfunctional family might seem a daunting task, there are intervention models that have proven successful, said Richard Dembo, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida and adviser to the task force.

"It's not really easy and you don't reach everybody," Dembo said, "but the alternative is to throw up your hands and then you're not effective with anybody."

Also on the task force's agenda is identifying agencies that can help children and families with their underlying problems once they've been assessed. The service providers who are chosen will have to show through data that they have been effective in preventing kids from reoffending.

"This is probably going to be one of the more challenging parts of the process because there are so many for-profit and not-for-profit agencies that service kids," Beckner said. "Anytime you evaluate services and make decisions on who to refer to, it's challenging."

But the larger hurdle will be finding the money to pay for the assessments and services in the wake of government budget downsizing.

To experts like Dembo, it's an investment worth making if society is serious about preventing juvenile crime as opposed to locking up ever more offenders, a more expensive proposition.

"The question is do we have the resources and the political will to really move in this direction," he said, "because it's not an easy change."