Florida: home of juvenile justice reforms.

When the Annie E. Casey Foundation held its largest juvenile justice gathering in Orlando, about 900 policymakers and practitioners paused to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative that began with court-ordered reforms in Broward County.

Retired Judge Frank Orlando, director of the Center for the Study of Youth Policy at Nova Southeastern University, was in the trenches as a juvenile judge, witnessing conditions at the Broward County Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

The secure lock-up facility was built to house 109 children and was run by what was then called the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. In the spring of 1987, the average daily population was 157, and had risen to a single-day high of 207. As chronicled in a scholarly 1993 article in Crime & Delinquency, "Litigation as an Instrument for Change in Juvenile Detention: A Case Study," children were sleeping on mattresses on the floor or on foldaway cots, classrooms had been turned into dorms, and children regularly spent extended chunks of time in isolation as abusive punishment. There was very little offered in the way of mental health counseling and recreation was sporadic.

At least 66 percent of the juveniles in the facility were charged with nonviolent offenses, and 10 to 15 children were...