Readers React: $233,600 to lock up a kid? There’s got to be a better way.

To the editor: The article reporting that Los Angeles County spends $233,600 per year for each young person it detains exposes the troubling disconnect between social science research and the county’s budget priorities. (“L.A. County spends more than $233,000 a year to hold each youth in juvenile lockup,” Feb. 23)

Evidence-based research consistently demonstrates that interventions that provide counseling and support to young people and their families in their homes and communities are much more successful at reducing delinquency than incarceration. However, these programs receive far less funding than the county’s broken and expensive probation camps.

For far less than $233,600 per child annually, Los Angeles could provide community-based prevention and intervention services that would change lives and reduce crime. We would do well to base our allocation of resources on evidence-based practices rather than continuing to rely on incarceration as a primary response to juvenile delinquency.

Beth Caldwell, Los Angeles

The writer is a professor at Southwestern Law School specializing in juvenile justice.

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To the editor: It wasn’t too long ago that probation facilities were bulging at the seams. Thus, to conclude it is time to downsize or close some of them in the absence of valid data may be premature.

Also, because of some wording in California’s juvenile court law that requires a “homelike” setting in juvenile facilities, cost comparisons with other states may be meaningless. The fact that San Diego’s costs are significantly lower than Los Angeles’ is cause for concern.

Juvenile justice law in California begs for a comprehensive review so the state can modernize its approaches to today’s youth population. If it is found that probation funding needs curtailment, it would be nice to use the money for school-based programs designed to prevent kids from entering the juvenile system in the first place.

Raul Solis, Upland

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To the editor: Room and board, tuition, fees and books at Stanford University cost about $67,000 per year. The cost in a Los Angeles County detention center is $233,600 annually.

Send the kids to Stanford. They will get a better education and for the 621 juveniles reported in detention, the county will save more than $100 million the first year.

Ron Cohen, Santa Monica

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