Philly leaders agree on a need to divert kids from the justice system. But can they agree how?

In November, Philadelphia quietly opened its first-ever Juvenile Assessment Center — a hub where children and teens under arrest can access services and, in some cases, be diverted out of the juvenile justice system before ever being charged.

It was the culmination of more than six years of planning, research, and negotiation — and a solution to the city’s chronic failure to process arrested youths within six hours, as required by state and federal law.

Now, just as quietly, the city plans to close the building on 21st Street near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, known as the JAC, and decentralize its work.

Instead, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel — who led a groundbreaking diversion initiative for the Philadelphia School District that cut in-school arrests by 90% — envisions a system in which police officers will be trained to connect youth with community-based crime-prevention programs instead of arresting them. He said he has convened a task force that will help develop a list of charges that will be designated for diversion at the point of arrest.

“We can create a national model,” he said.

In his view, his plan is a step to prevent the trauma of kids as young as 10 being handcuffed, placed in a squad car, and driven across the city to a central processing facility for low-level crimes such as shoplifting. And it’s a way to transform police-community relations, by enabling officers to serve as a resource.

Bethel said he’s driven by one guiding question: “How do we get up front and reduce the number of kids we have even touch the system?”

But his plan means that kids who are not diverted will go back to being processed at police division booking facilities — and, said Keisha Hudson, chief of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, potentially once again face being held in police lockups beyond the legal six-hour limit.

“[The JAC] has been effective in helping our kids,” Hudson said, adding that she has not seen a concrete plan for how kids will be processed. “There is nothing that’s going to take its place once it’s dismantled.”

Since November, according to internal data, more than 1,100 kids passed through the JAC, which is staffed by social workers and police. About 10% were diverted from the court system, hundreds of families received information or services, and kids’ processing time was reduced by almost one third.

JAC staff also prevented more than 50 young people from being placed in juvenile detention simply because their parents refused to come pick them up. Youth incarceration, researchers have found, leads to worse mental health and educational outcomes — and is harmful to public safety because it’s linked to increased recidivism.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia juvenile detention overcrowding has led to kids sleeping on floors, and in offices

“That [parental refusal] was driven down to zero,” Hudson said, “because you have someone dedicated who’s reaching out, trying to find a guardian, and will then transport them home.”

Bethel, at a City Council hearing in April, suggested that low rate of cases diverted was not impressive, given that the JAC was costing his department $4.2 million. The JAC also is budgeted $796,320 for civilian staff this fiscal year.

And he said he had no interest in being “the Grim Reaper,” with his officers delivering only doom and no hope.

“I want the officers on the front line to be able to do diversion at the point of contact, be able to talk to those families, provide support.”

Philadelphia police already divert adults under arrest for drug possession or prostitution, and refer them to social services. But the police recently decided that adults arrested for retail theft are no longer eligible for diversion.

About 100 jurisdictions around the country run local variations on the model, which was first developed in the 1990s with support from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Each one is different, said Molli Barker-Cook, who heads the National Assessment Center Association.

But they’re based on a common framework — which includes providing families with a single point of contact to access information and services, and creating a welcoming and trauma-informed physical space. And, they share a goal of diverting kids out of the justice system and into community-based programs.

Philadelphia’s JAC, which benefited from a $1 million Bloomberg U.S. Mayors Challenge grant, is housed at a former police district near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Some enthusiastic volunteers even came in on their personal time to help paint the space, to make it look less like a police station. The model called for both social workers and staff with personal juvenile-justice system experience.

» READ MORE: Youth in Philly's juvenile detention center are not getting adequate education, advocates alleged

Barker-Cook was skeptical that the same work of an assessment center could be accomplished with no dedicated location and questioned the idea that beat cops would be positioned to refer kids to resources.

“Who in the community has the expertise to connect kids and families with services and support? Is that law enforcement expertise? In most communities, no.”

Youth assessment centers have flourished in other cities, including Miami and Las Vegas.

An analysis in Miami estimated that its center, called the Miami-Dade Juvenile Services Department, saved the city $20 million a year, while driving down youth arrests by 78%.

Philadelphia’s JAC is set to cease processing arrested youth in mid-September. Some staff will remain in the building after that, pending relocation to a new site or sites that Bethel has not yet identified.

“Our collective goal will continue to be to deliver the highest level of supports and services to youth who touch the criminal justice system,” said Evangelia Manos, first deputy for the city’s Office of Public Safety, by email.

As to how the city will manage processing times, she said, JAC staff will work to remove barriers and “encourage partners to prioritize and expedite processing.”

“The JAC staff will remain employed and will shift their focus to support community-based diversion and to provide many of the same supports to youth and their families, albeit remotely and/or in a mobile fashion,” she said.

Bethel said kids who are diverted by police will likely be referred to Intensive Prevention Services, a community-based program that already serves youth aged 10 to 19. He said he’s also considering how police could use the city’s Evening Resource Centers, where officers bring kids found violating curfew.

He said the department is still developing its plans, and will track the impact of its work, in collaboration with a Drexel University’s Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab.

He said that the JAC will be the starting point. But, he said, “I want to build that into something even bigger.”

Staff writer Samantha Melamed is a Stoneleigh Fellow reporting on youth justice issues.