By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are over-represented in the criminal justice system, research shows. And a growing number of reports suggest that interactions between those youth and law enforcement are becoming dangerous or violent.

To address those challenges, a judge in Las Vegas has started an innovative program she hopes will change things for the better.

Since 2018, Judge Sunny Bailey has been running the Detention Alternative for Autistic Youth Court, or DAAY Court, in Nevada’s 8th Judicial District. DAAY Court is a diversion program that identifies at-risk youth with autism and directs them into treatment programs instead of punishing them with criminal sentences.

DAAY Court is the first and only court in the U.S. to focus on children and teens with autism. It’s run largely by volunteers — including social workers, psychologists, attorneys and family members — who coordinate to provide psychiatric treatment, behavioral modification programs, socialization activities and parent training tailored to the kids and teens with autism who come through Bailey’s courtroom.

Bailey told The Defender that most of the youth with autism who end up in her court are facing charges for battery against family or community members, and that many of them have never had access to successful treatment options for their ASD.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and probation officers, who have become well-versed in potential ASD markers, flag cases they think may be candidates for the program.

Bailey hears the DAAY Court cases in special quiet sessions, where she evaluates the situation and determines which programs or services would provide appropriate treatment. Most youth are placed in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy.

Bailey and coordinator Khristie Cury told The Defender that 143 youth have come through the program since it began. And they have a recidivism rate of under 10%.

“We don’t measure our success as much as our recidivism, and our greatest recidivism happens among the families that don’t stay with the ABA therapy,” Bailey said.

Daughter’s success inspires a judge to act

Bailey, the mother of a daughter with autism, said that having a child with autism in a family affects everyone, so everyone has to be part of the solution.

As a young child, Bailey’s daughter exhibited frequent episodes of violent behavior, which resulted in injuries to herself and her mother.

Eventually, Bailey found ABA therapy, a treatment approach that emphasizes positive reinforcement as a way to modify behavior. She credits ABA with her daughter’s significant improvement. Today, her daughter rarely has violent episodes.

Her daughter’s success inspired Bailey to use ABA as a therapy option for the DAAY Court program. She also uses a reward system — of snacks, toys and gift cards — to encourage young people’s participation in the court.

Bailey and Cury said that although some elements of traditional ABA therapy have faced criticism, the therapy has evolved. They see significant, exciting, long-term results in the DAAY Court program. Teens in the programs learn job skills, frustration tolerance, and other applicable skills.

Like the ‘octopus of the legal system’

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 in 31 children in the U.S. has autism, and those numbers rise annually.

Autistic youth can sometimes behave aggressively toward themselves or others. That feature of an ASD diagnosis may contribute to adverse outcomes in the criminal justice system.

People with autism also can have social and communication differences that make them seem uncooperative or avoidant. They can be triggered by things — like sirens, loud courtrooms or physical restraints — commonly associated with the criminal justice system.

Bailey said the program started “by accident” when she was assigned a case of a young man who had assaulted his stepfather. Probation officers came to her and said they were having difficulty getting him into the courtroom because he was overstimulated and experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety.

Bailey set his hearing for a “quiet calendar,” meaning that his case would be the only one in the courtroom that afternoon to avoid overstimulation.

The young man was charged with battery, and he had no support services. Bailey released him to his family with instructions to return the next week. In the meantime, they were able to get him services, along with a wraparound provider — a person who can coordinate multiple complex services.

After that, providers, attorneys and probation officers kept coming to them with new cases, thinking they had started a new “autism court.”

Bailey said they continued to respond to inquiries with, “We don’t have an autism court.” But she also kept adding the cases to her calendar, holding a monthly meeting.

Soon, different individuals and organizations — including Legal Aid — heard about the work, began volunteering their services, and the program grew organically.

As time went on, the court administrator said, “‘Well apparently we have an autism court,’” Bailey said. They named it the DAAY Court in honor of the first youth, who was moved from detention to treatment.

“We’re kind of like the octopus of the legal system,” Bailey said, explaining how the program grew. “Once you come in, we just kind of grab you and everyone just stays.”

The court is funded with small administrative fees from the Family Court and donations of food and materials. Volunteers and advocacy organizations provide some support, and the ABA therapy is typically covered by Medicaid or insurance.

Cury works to help families navigate the bureaucracy and access services.

In the summer of 2023, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo officially recognized the program, making it eligible for more funding. Lombardo’s signature on Senate Bill 411 also allowed other Nevada jurisdictions to create their own DAAY Court program.

Building a DAAY Court program starts with ‘trying to help one kid’

Bailey said there is no typical day in DAAY Court, because every case that comes into her courtroom is different. ASD is a spectrum, she said, and each young person has a different experience.

Bailey evaluates each case to determine what challenges a youth is facing, what behaviors she wants to positively reinforce, whether they have comorbidities that have to be taken into account, what their home life is like with parents or foster families, whether they have been previously assessed, and what program would best suit them.

Today, Bailey’s DAAY Court is expanding beyond autism to children who are in dependency court — which addresses children who are neglected, abused or otherwise not receiving proper care.

The Defender asked Bailey and Cury how other communities might replicate a similar program in other jurisdictions.

Bailey said interested communities “shouldn’t overthink it.” She said instead of trying to implement a massive program, they should think about “trying to help one kid.”

“I think just to sum it up, we have to ask, is every kid worth it?” Bailey said. “Anything we can do from the dependency side to put them in a forever home, from the delinquency side, to keep them out of the criminal justice system, and to keep our community safe, to keep our families safe, to keep our families intact, anything we can do to do that is worth it.”

That’s how DAAY Court started, she said — with one kid — and it has grown from there. “They’ll be amazed at what a huge impact they can make in their community and how much of your community will come together to support it.”

Cury said the impacts of the types of early intervention DAAY Court can offer can’t be overstated. “From a clinical perspective, I think catching these kids very early, as early as 4 years old and being able to get them the services has a major impact.”

“They don’t have to be traumatized by getting kicked out of school, having to go through multiple evaluations and being misdiagnosed,” she said.

Bailey added that intervention before age 18 could stop people from getting caught up in the criminal justice system as adults.

Related articles in The Defender

• 1 in 31 Kids Had Autism in 2022 — Up From 1 in 36 in 2020
• Kids, Vaccines and Autism: Will a New Legal Strategy End the Decades-long Battle for Truth and Justice?
• Eyeing Big Profits, a Private Equity Firm Bought a Leading Autism Services Provider — Then COVID Hit

The post Nevada Judge Helps Kids and Teens With Autism Get Treatment — Instead of Jail Sentences appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

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