Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner will announce plans Wednesday to keep more juveniles out of the court system and keep many who are charged out of custody.
Krasner, a longtime civil rights lawyer who took office last year, joins a wave of progressive prosecutors nationwide trying to address the "school-to-prison" pipeline that emerged in the 1990s amid fears of teenage "superpredators."
"It did far more harm than good," Krasner said Tuesday, speaking of the trend to criminalize things like behavioral problems and school infractions. "It resulted in lousy educations, (and) it broke close relationships with family and friends, positive influences that would have actually been more rehabilitative."
Philadelphia now holds about 500 juveniles each day in detention centers spread across the state and beyond, a number that's dropped from about 700 two years ago. The average placement costs about $160,000 a year per child in Pennsylvania, and can be far higher, his office said. By comparison, the Philadelphia School District spends less than $15,000 a year per student.
Krasner and first assistant Bob Listenbee, a juvenile justice expert who worked in the Justice Department under President Barack Obama, are also concerned about the system's racial disparity. Nearly three-quarters of Philadelphia children found "delinquent" by the courts are black, while the city's population is about 44 percent black.
