{"id":2033,"date":"2007-07-30T08:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/officers-frustrated-with-childrens-court-judges\/"},"modified":"2007-07-30T08:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T14:57:00","slug":"officers-frustrated-with-childrens-court-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/officers-frustrated-with-childrens-court-judges\/","title":{"rendered":"Officers frustrated with children’s court judges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The two newest district judges in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> are facing criticism from law-enforcement officials who believe they\u2019re being too lax with juveniles, the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> is reporting this morning. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Children\u2019s Court Judges Fernando Macias and Lisa Schultz defended their decisions as appropriate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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 \u201cshocked\u201d to learn that, \u201cparticularly with the level of repeat offenders and violent crimes the county has been experiencing lately.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Macias told the newspaper that, where juveniles are concerned, \u201cdetention is for those that haven\u2019t necessarily been convicted of a crime, it\u2019s for those that are awaiting their adjudicatory process.\u201d He said the lower population in the detention center is partly because \u201cthe number of cases that are coming into the delinquency court are a little bit low.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He also said the court\u2019s aim is to try to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, and some are placed \u201cin other kinds of settings\u201d such as treatment facilities.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Schultz said she doesn\u2019t have a \u201ccookie-cutter approach\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised to hear that there are concerns and questions of having a certain kind of agenda,\u201d Schultz told the Sun-News. \u201cThe agenda is basically healing the community and the children.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said she agrees that some juveniles should be given alternatives to detention, but said that should not include violent and repeat offenders.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sheriff Todd Garrison told the Sun-News law enforcement needs to work with the judges so they understand that \u201cwe need the judges to support the officers and law enforcement, not just turn (the juveniles) loose and let them do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

An unnamed juvenile probation officer told the newspaper there is frustration among the officers.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the officers are at the point of complete frustration,\u201d the officer said. \u201c\u2026 If a kid is dirty for cocaine, there\u2019s no consequence. Give him services. The kid is already in services. He\u2019s not adjusting to therapy, he\u2019s not taking in the therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, 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\u2019s therapy. And, it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn\u2019t,\u201d the officer told the Sun-News.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This appears to be part of the age-old dispute over how to treat juvenile offenders. It was no secret when Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> appointed both judges to the bench last year that they were fairly liberal in their philosophies about these issues, so it\u2019s no surprise that there is frustration among the generally conservative law-enforcement profession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two newest district judges in Do\u00f1a Ana County are facing criticism from law-enforcement officials who believe they\u2019re being too lax with juveniles, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting this morning. Children\u2019s Court Judges Fernando Macias and Lisa Schultz defended their decisions as appropriate. The number of juveniles housed at the county detention center has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}