Opponents say bill to ease juvenile overcrowding by sending older youth to DOC risks undoing JR-to-25 reforms

Opponents of Senate Bill 5278 told the Senate Human Services Committee that the bill’s sweeping transfer powers would strip youth of procedural protections and risk moving people into the adult prison system for reasons beyond their control.

The bill, presented to the committee as the Juvenile Rehabilitation Overcrowding Relief Act, would require or permit transfers from the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) juvenile rehabilitation system to the Department of Corrections (DOC) when facilities exceed certain ‘‘rated bed capacity’’ thresholds, and it would change when hearings are required for transfers. Proponents said the measure is needed to address chronic overcrowding at Green Hill School; critics said it would reintroduce the very harms the JR-to-25 policy was meant to prevent.

Kelsey Anne Fung, staff to the committee, summarized the proposed substitute and said the bill contains five main elements including a requirement that DCYF adopt rules for safe operational capacity, authorization to move certain people to DOC without a transfer hearing when institutions exceed 105% of rated bed capacity, a process for some voluntary adult-court transfers, mandatory transfers for staff assaults, and accelerated deadlines for transfer hearings in certain disciplinary cases. Fung also noted DOC’s partial fiscal estimate: an indeterminate annual impact likely greater than…