HARTFORD – Budget cuts have forced the closure of juvenile courts in Torrington, Danbury, and Stamford, as well as the district courthouse in Willimantic, Judicial officials announced Tuesday morning.
The Judicial Branch’s budget was cut $77 million. Hundreds of jobs were eliminated and the courts are closing because there aren’t enough staff members to keep them running, Chief Court Administrator Patrick L. Carroll III said in a statement.
The announcement follows the elimination of several long-established educational and treatment programs that helped keep juvenile and adult offenders out of jail.
“It is unfortunate that these courthouse closings must occur,” Carroll said. “They will be disruptive and will impact many people. I want to stress that the closure of courthouses is not driven by savings generated by closing the facilities. Rather, these closings are required because of the loss of staff, through attrition, a strict hiring freeze and layoffs that have already been announced.”
He said court-system workers “are doing the best that we can to position the Judicial Branch so that we can continue to meet the needs of the people we serve, despite significantly fewer resources.”
The Judicial Branch was allocated $586 million for 2016-2017; the legislature approved $537 million.
In addition to that $49 million reduction, Judicial is citing $22.4 million in “lapsed” or unspent money that the branch cannot keep, and $6 million that was passed through to the probate court system.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy had proposed a Judicial Branch budget of $507 million, or $30 million less than the legislature approved.
Malloy’s criminal-justice office has said that between 2009 and 2015, the number of prisoners aged 18 to 21 dropped from 2,067 to 964, a 53 percent decline.
In 2014, just over 2,600 17-year-olds were arrested, down 60 percent from about 6,624 arrested in 2008.
As a result of the closings, juvenile cases in Danbury will be transferred to Bridgeport and Waterbury; cases from Torrington will be shifted to Waterbury and New Britain, Judicial officials said.
Juvenile matters in Stamford will be heard in Bridgeport; and cases from the Willimantic district courthouse will be taken up at the Putnam Judicial District Courthouse, or Geographical Area Courthouse No. 11 in Danielson.
Officials said these closings will be completed by the end of the year. More closings may follow.
Statement of on today’s announcement by the Judicial Branch about the closing of courthouses:
“The Judicial Marshals understand that the state’s budgetary situation is dire and there is a need for cost savings, but we have significant concerns about how today’s reorganization plan and last month’s layoff of 101 Judicial Marshals and 23 Judicial Security Officers will impact public safety,” Joe Gaetano, President, International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 731, said in a prepared statement. “The closing of courthouses does not mean caseloads will be reduced; it means more business will be consolidated in fewer buildings.”
The cuts also wiped a series of community-based programs, including one that helped hundreds of at-risk teenagers and juvenile offenders return to, or catch up in, school — a service that advocates say was highly effective in keeping kids out of juvenile jail.
Canceling the school advocacy work makes no economic sense because the several hundred thousand dollars it costs to keep one youth in jail for one year dwarfs the cost of the legal services, said Martha Stone, a UConn law professor who is the founder and executive director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy in Hartford. The center provided the advocacy work along with Connecticut Legal Services and New Haven Legal Assistance.
“School engagement is the most important intervention to prevent recidivism — it is the ticket out of the system for these kids,” said Stone.
“The educational advocacy model was a very important program,” acknowledged Stephen Grant, who directs the Court Support Services Division of the Judicial Branch.
“It is only because these budget reductions are so profound that we were forced to dig down so deeply into our provider network to make this cut,” Grant said. He said his division will look to what he said were its remaining “core services” — community supervision, substance abuse treatment and behavioral and family therapy and counseling — to continue to try to hold down the recidivism rate.
