Rep. Hovey Attends Federal Advisory Committee On Juvenile Justice Meeting

HARTFORD-  State Representative DebraLee Hovey (R-112), upon returning from a meeting of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice (FACJJ), said that the federal government must do more to alleviate mandates imposed upon states in order to ensure that more dollars are spent in preventing and mitigating juvenile delinquency rather than bureaucracy.

“The recent meeting of FACJJ focused on the role federal mandates play in individual states’ juvenile justice systems and facilitated a frank and constructive discussion about what needs to change,” said Rep. Hovey, who is Connecticut’s representative to the body.  “Just as state mandates hurt local government’s ability to innovate and improve local education and other services, so too do federal mandates inhibit the ability of the individual states to craft juvenile justice systems that serve in the best interest of their children.  Most importantly, the alleviation of these mandates will ensure that more dollars allocated for juvenile justice go directly to helping children, rather than red tape and bureaucracy.”

FACJJ is a consultative body within the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that makes annual recommendations to the U.S. Congress and the President regarding needed improvements to the juvenile justice system.  Rep. Hovey serves on the Committee’s Annual Report Subcommittee, which is tasked with gathering information on juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and intervention programs from each of the fifty states and U.S. Territories a questionnaire called the Annual Request for Information (ARI).  The Subcommittee most recently met fromOctober 29^th – 31^st in Austin, TX, with Rep. Hovey in attendance