58% re-offend: NM’s youth crime crisis explodes as state fails to fix system

Despite decades of promises and millions of taxpayer dollars poured into “rehabilitation-focused” youth programs, New Mexico’s juvenile justice system remains profoundly broken — and a new Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) report shows just how deep the failures run.

While referrals to the juvenile system have dropped over the last two decades, the report reveals a far more troubling truth: a majority of the youth entering the system end up coming back. Of the roughly 113,000 juvenile referrals over the last 11 years, a staggering 58 percent were re-referrals, meaning those same young offenders cycled right back into the courts and state supervision.

Far from being a success story, the numbers point to a system that cannot hold offenders accountable, cannot treat underlying behavioral issues, and cannot keep communities safe.

Lawmakers expressed alarm at both the re-referral rate and a recent post-pandemic surge in youth crime.

“We want to prevent them from being an adult who commits a crime,” said Rep. Rebecca Dow, R–Truth or Consequences. She also questioned why juveniles are allowed to refuse mental health or treatment services when those very issues are driving recidivism.

The report underscores that 86 percent of the youths committed to state facilities experienced four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) — trauma, abuse, instability, or neglect. New Mexico consistently ranks among the highest in the nation for childhood trauma rates, and that trauma is clearly showing up in the criminal justice system.

Perhaps even more alarming: one-third of juveniles charged over the past 11 years had prior contact with CYFD’s child protective services. For many kids, the state fails them long before they are ever arrested.

Acting CYFD Secretary Valerie Sandoval attempted to reassure lawmakers that the agency is trying to better evaluate which youths need treatment versus secure detention. CYFD runs two secure facilities in Albuquerque and Las Cruces and oversees 29 probation and parole offices, while four counties operate local detention centers.

“We are not detaining low-risk juveniles, and we are not releasing high-risk juveniles on their own accord,” Sandoval insisted.

But lawmakers weren’t convinced — and neither were the numbers.

CYFD is currently overseeing 2,349 juveniles with active cases, ranging from misdemeanors to violent felonies. From September 2023 to the present, 631 juveniles were detained for firearm-related offenses — a wave of gun crime that contradicts the state’s claim that its “community-based model” is working.

Rep. Mark Duncan, R–Kirtland, warned that without meaningful intervention, many of these repeat juvenile offenders will simply graduate into the adult correctional system. And the financial burden is enormous:

“It costs about $345,000 per year to hold one juvenile in a state facility,” Duncan said.

“We can graduate a kid from Harvard for the same amount.”

Meanwhile, the state’s behavioral health system — the backbone of any functional rehabilitative model — has all but collapsed. Between 2022 and 2024, New Mexico lost roughly 1,500 behavioral health providers, even as the Legislature raised Medicaid reimbursement rates.

To make matters worse, a $20 million youth behavioral health expansion approved in 2022 is now under investigation over whether the funds were misused.

The LFC report bluntly concluded that New Mexico simply lacks the behavioral health capacity needed to treat at-risk youth, leaving both the children and the public at risk.

CYFD spent $78 million last year on juvenile justice, primarily on state-run facilities and probation offices. Yet without effective treatment, oversight, or accountability, the system continues to churn out the same troubled kids — only more traumatized, more violent, and more disconnected.

For years, New Mexico leaders have promised juvenile justice reform. This report makes one thing clear: those promises have gone nowhere, and accountability is long overdue.