The two newest district judges in
Children’s Court Judges Fernando Macias and Lisa Schultz defended their decisions as appropriate.
The number of juveniles housed at the county detention center has recently fallen to half of its historical average of about 20. District Attorney Susana Martinez told the newspaper she was “shocked” to learn that, “particularly with the level of repeat offenders and violent crimes the county has been experiencing lately.”
Macias told the newspaper that, where juveniles are concerned, “detention is for those that haven’t necessarily been convicted of a crime, it’s for those that are awaiting their adjudicatory process.” He said the lower population in the detention center is partly because “the number of cases that are coming into the delinquency court are a little bit low.”
He also said the court’s aim is to try to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, and some are placed “in other kinds of settings” such as treatment facilities.
Schultz said she doesn’t have a “cookie-cutter approach” to deciding whether juveniles should be kept in the detention center or sent to other programs. She said the juvenile probation office, district attorney and police are doing a good job.
“I’m surprised to hear that there are concerns and questions of having a certain kind of agenda,” Schultz told the Sun-News. “The agenda is basically healing the community and the children.”
Sheriff Todd Garrison told the Sun-News law enforcement needs to work with the judges so they understand that “we need the judges to support the officers and law enforcement, not just turn (the juveniles) loose and let them do it again.”
An unnamed juvenile probation officer told the newspaper there is frustration among the officers.
“Most of the officers are at the point of complete frustration,” the officer said. “… If a kid is dirty for cocaine, there’s no consequence. Give him services. The kid is already in services. He’s not adjusting to therapy, he’s not taking in the therapy.”
“Before, if you were dirty, you got detained and using detention as a tool and therapy combined was working a lot better. Now, we only have one tool and it’s therapy. And, it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t,” the officer told the Sun-News.
This appears to be part of the age-old dispute over how to treat juvenile offenders. It was no secret when Gov. Bill Richardson appointed both judges to the bench last year that they were fairly liberal in their philosophies about these issues, so it’s no surprise that there is frustration among the generally conservative law-enforcement profession.