Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, sits on the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives on April 25, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
An Alabama lawmaker prefiled a bill that would create a pilot program requiring minors who commit a nonviolent offense to be held at a youth detention center to complete an intervention class.
Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, the sponsor of HB 33, said he believed the program would deter participants from committing crimes in the future.
“We are losing our youth by not having a handle on them,” Ingram said in an interview Tuesday. “A lot of our parents are working multiple jobs, and we don’t have a handle on them like we used to before COVID, and even way before COVID.”
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The intervention class would be hosted at a youth detention facility for a couple of hours in which the minor and a legal guardian would be required to attend. The goal, Ingram said, would be giving those in the program a sense of what it feels to be incarcerated.
Counties participating in the program would be selected by the Alabama Department of Youth Services based on certain criteria, including the number of local juvenile delinquency cases; juvenile delinquency adjudications, and population growth.
“The Alabama Department of Youth Services was unaware of this bill until it was recently brought to our attention,” the department said in a statement Tuesday. “DYS has not been involved in any discussions in regards to the conceptualization and/or details of the bill. We are currently reviewing the bill and will determine next steps.”
The pilot program expires after five years.
The process starts for the minor and the guardian starts when a law enforcement officer reaches out to a youth probation officer when a minor is suspected of having committed a nonviolent crime. If the probation officer receives permission from a court to detain the child, the law enforcement officer will then transport the child to a detention center to undergo intervention training along with the minor’s legal guardian.
“The program is going to be designed by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency,” Ingram said. “It is pretty broad, but it is a program where it teaches them of the consequences when they commit a crime and has some filler in there that teaches them wrong from right and the consequences. It teaches them that if they commit this crime, they will go to prison, and it is just a bad track.”
A message was left with ALEA seeking comment. Ingram added that the governor’s office would also have input for deciding the elements of the program. Participants will also be required to take a test to gauge their understanding of the material that Ingram said is “pass or fail.”
Youth would also be placed into a database to track whether they commit additional crimes in the future and ensure they are not truant.
Jefferson County has implemented a similar program, absent the need for individuals to be transported to a detention facility. The Reset Program is a pretrial diversion program for those arrested for low level offenses. The program sends people from court to a class hosted on Saturday for a few hours. Should they successfully complete the training, the participants’ crimes are removed from their record.
“We want to make sure we save these kids and catch them at an early age,” Ingram said. “I was in that process. I was a dropout from school. My mother was a drug addict. I feel like I was in the trenches for several years, and I had mentors that were able to get a hold of me and straighten me out. I just feel like this is a piece that is missing from this state, to be able to have a net to catch these juveniles from committing crimes again.”
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