Arts Can Help Turn Youths From Crime Arts Group Seeks State Funds For Work With Juvenile Offenders
The director of the Idaho Commission on the Arts urged legislative budget writers Thursday to expand a pilot program aimed at checking escalation in state juvenile-justice spending.
“We showed social workers, probation officers, Juvenile Court justices and legislators that the arts can make a difference to kids who are beginning to slip off the edge of the map,” Margot Knight told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.
Although state cash is tight, Knight asked the House-Senate panel for $50,000 to continue the Arts in Education Youth at Risk program. It was begun two years ago with a one-time $125,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Noting that 24,000 juvenile arrests were made statewide last year, Knight cited Gov. Phil Batt’s request for a 17 percent increase in spending and 31 more Department of Juvenile Corrections staffers.
“At this rate, you won’t have enough money to build prisons to hold them all,” Knight said. “The Arts Commission doesn’t want to see all your money go to building prisons. We want to see kids building communities. We want to see kids making things, not breaking things.”
The project pairs first-time juvenile offenders with artists of various types. The goal is to show teens ways to express themselves positively while giving them someone to look up to and confide in.
The Arts Commission already has been working with Juvenile Corrections officials, Knight said, and state support will provide the seed money to bring more communities into the project.
The pilot program began in Boise with about 120 juveniles, and 130 were added in Idaho Falls and Moscow last year. Knight said the Boise program is operating on its own now, and US West has invested in the Idaho Falls program after just a single year of operation there.
The potential for diverting juveniles away from crime through the arts, Knight said, is not only real but also cost-effective. The less than $7 a day the Arts in Education Youth at Risk program spends on each juvenile is a fraction of the $125 a day it costs to incarcerate delinquents.