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Witnesses warn locked youth facilities costly and racially disparate; advocates urge minimal use
Summary
Advocates told the Judiciary Committee that secure juvenile facilities are expensive, associated with racial disparities and risk of harm, and should be used only when necessary while Vermont invests in community alternatives.
Matthew Bernstein and other witnesses described secure juvenile facilities as costly and disproportionately harmful to youth of color. Bernstein cited national research and Vermont figures showing racial disproportionality among incarcerated youths and said past state analyses put annual per-youth costs for institutional placements in the hundreds of thousands. "Youth prisons are immensely expensive, immensely racially unjust, rife with abuses in Vermont and elsewhere," Bernstein said.
Committee members asked for detail about the cited $528,000 per-youth figure.…
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