DRCNH Home > News > 10-27-2004

By Jody Record
Manchester Union Leader Correspondent
October 27, 2004

Durham -- More than 70 percent of the troubled kids who get sent to the state’s Youth Development Center have some kind of disability, according to a report released by the Institute on Disability and Justiceworks at the University of New Hampshire.

What’s more, lead researcher Michael Skibbie says, youths with disabilities are sent to YDC on less serious offenses than those without disabilities.

The report, which comes out of a yearlong study of court and commitment records, does not address the why of the findings; instead it simply looks at the committed population and the offenses that got them there.

“We looked at how the kids were being treated by the courts,” Skibbie said. “One of the things we found is that information that would help the courts deal with the problems these kids have isn’t making it into the courts.”

The study was commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services Division of Juvenile Justice Services. Funding came through the State Advisory Group on Juvenile Justice, which oversees the distribution of federal funds for juvenile justice programs in New Hampshire and UNH’s Institute on Disability.

In addition to discovering the high percentage of incarcerated disabled youths, the research showed more girls than boys are committed to YDC or other correctional facilities than nationally.

The critical years for disabled youth appear to be between ninth and 10th grade, when more kids are apt to be sent to YDC, the study showed, suggesting the transition from middle to high school is a critical time for at-risk youth. The study focused on children involved in court or committed to YDC during the year 2001.

“The obvious question raised by the study,” said Jan Nisbet, director of the Institute on Disability, “is whether or not we as a state are criminalizing behaviors that flow from disabilities among children. It would appear that we are, yet we know from other research that a treatment-oriented approach to their behavior is the wiser course for them, and for us.”

Adds Skibbie, “There’s hope the courts will be able to use this information and improve the procedures so the kids with disabilities going through the system are treated fairly. The supports you would look for are often not there when kids are in trouble with the law. People should know these kids have more than one hurdle to get over.”