Maria Archuleta: Why do so many elected leaders keep going back to harsh sentences for youth when we know it doesn’t work?

Jazmyn Taitingfong: There’s a lack of education and real understanding of what we’ve learned about a child’s brain and how criminality drops off as they get older. There are studies now showing that even one day in detention for a child can cause serious trauma that leads to behavioral problems and higher dropout rates. We can connect that science to best practices that we know work — but too many decision-makers aren’t making that connection.

Daniel Williams: For some of our politicians, there’s a sense that appearing tough on crime will always win you an election. Saying “lock them up” is a simple soundbite you can put on social media and get some votes. We know the situation is much more complicated than that, but there’s always this political instinct to make things as simple as possible, even if that makes them wrong.

It’s really disappointing to see this regression now, because our state has proven that we have the vision and the will to really invest in our communities. We are the first state in the country to have universal childcare, and our legislature has made huge investments to improve access to behavioral health. All of those are steps in the right direction. But we hamstring those efforts when we regress into hyper-punitive attacks on the well-being of young people and families.

Maria: What are parents who have watched their kids go through the system telling you? What did their children actually need that they didn’t get?

Daniel: One thing I’ve heard consistently from parents is how many attempts they made to access care and support before things reached a crisis point — and how heartbroken, frustrated, and angry they are that those resources were not available to them. They knew what their child needed. But the lack of access, the maze of red tape, the barriers that have existed for far too long for far too many New Mexico families meant they weren’t getting that support, and now these families are bearing the consequences.

Jazmyn: Many times I saw parents try to get their children access to mental healthcare, but it was just not available. In a moment of crisis, they thought law enforcement was the only place to call. And so the child entered the juvenile carceral system. I’ve seen parents go into court and say, “I don’t want them involved with the system, but I need help. They need these resources.”

Sometimes once a child is involved in the system, they may be getting what are described as services, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually addressing the needs the child really has. Detention often exacerbates mental health issues and makes things worse — sometimes the acting out is a manifestation of those issues to begin with.