By focusing on children, from birth to adulthood, The Children’s Trust has made Miami-Dade safer

In the decades before The Children’s Trust was approved by Miami-Dade voters in 2002, our community had been facing an increasing juvenile crime problem with few clear options.

Far too many young people were being drawn into criminal activity instead of being nurtured to develop their social and educational skills for a productive future.

Our community leaders in law enforcement, education and business, along with the voters of Miami-Dade County, recognized that something had to change if we were serious about helping children thrive and preventing crime.

Miami-Dade County was called upon to advance some creative solutions for this growing wave of juvenile crime. One of the actions undertaken was the voters’ approval of the creation of the Children’s Trust — Miami-Dade’s Children’s Services Council in 2002 followed by additional initiatives such as the joint State Attorney’s Office and Public Defender Office’s development of Miami’s first Juvenile Assessment Center (JAC) in downtown Miami.

Actions such as these helped introduce a statewide acknowledgement that juvenile offenders have individual problems and needs which may be a causative factor in their arrest.

What none of us could fully predict was just how particularly transformational The Children’s Trust — Miami-Dade’s Children’s Services Council — would be, especially when combined with partnership advances undertaken by the State Attorney and Public Defender Offices.

Over the last several decades, Miami-Dade has gone from a county where youth crime rates were shocking to a national model for how sustained, strategic investment in children can dramatically reduce youth crime while strengthening families and communities.

Two decades of transformation

Since the Children’s Trust of Miami-Dade began its work, and especially after it was reauthorized by 86% of voters in 2008 despite the recession, youth involvement in the justice system has plummeted. From 2005 to 2019, referrals of youth for delinquency dropped by 76%, and between 2010 and 2022, the arrest rate for youth ages 10 to 17 fell by an extraordinary 89%, according to the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Violent teen deaths declined as well, with a 31% decrease among youth ages 15 to 19 and a 23% drop among children ages 1 to 14 from 2002 to 2019, according to the Department of Health. Part of this statistical drop comes from the State Attorney’s commitment to the use of civil citations in lieu of arrest to reduce the number of charged juvenile offenders coming to JAC.

While youth crime is down across Florida, Miami-Dade has seen far greater progress. Both the State Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office have held the view that an arrest is not the only tool available to stop a child’s slippage toward criminality. A juvenile taking a chocolate bar is not the same as a juvenile stealing a car. Each juvenile needed to be treated differently.

The measured recidivism rate in Miami-Dade for juveniles who had been given civil citation instead of going through formal adjudication in the juvenile justice system was 3%. According to the Department of Juvenile Justice, youth arrests in Miami-Dade County dropped 40% from 2017 to 2024, compared to a 24% decline statewide.

The work The Children’s Trust does in prevention is key. It means kids are not coming into contact with the delinquency system, and the impact on the communities is far-reaching. The Children’s Trust funds programs that serve 47,000 youth in after-school and Summer programs that keep young people engaged in positive activities that support their development and keep them out of trouble.

For those of us who have spent our careers committed to public service in the justice system, these numbers are not abstract. We remember when juvenile crime consumed public safety discussions, when thousands of children were arrested each year, and too many were set on a path toward becoming adult offenders.

At the same time, we in the system were creating anti youth crime initiatives and diversion programs, the Trust was on the front-end of crime reduction. The Trust became the key and critical partner necessary to sustain the community wide reduction in youth crime and violence.

The Children’s Trust of Miami-Dade helped change that trajectory by addressing root causes rather than just consequences. It was understood that prevention, early intervention and alternatives to arrest proved far more effective. That and ensuring the work was based on evidence-based research became the cornerstone of The Trust’s approach.

Sustainability: Investing in toddlers, children, youth, and teenagers

One of The Trust’s greatest achievements is its commitment to the entirety of a child’s development. From prenatal care and early childhood education to after-school programs, mentoring, arts, sports, mental health services, workforce preparation, healthy development and support do not happen in isolation or at a single moment.

This approach helped, along with our efforts within the system, to reduce recidivism. Since 2009, the number of children in the delinquency system fell from more than 4,000 to fewer than 1,000, even as the youth population grew.

That is not an accident; it is the investment that strengthens families and builds resilient, confident young people.

Substituting civil citations for arrests has contributed significantly to these numbers. According to the Department of Juvenile Justice, between 2007 and 2025, over 21,000 civil citations were issued in Miami-Dade County. This overall sustained decrease in our view is a direct result of the interactions and preventions the Trust has created.

Future looks bright for our children

Safer neighborhoods, lower incarceration rates, reduced victimization, and stronger schools all contribute to Miami-Dade’s economic vitality and quality of life.

We are now seeing an entire generation of young adults who benefited from The Trust as youth, and the results are remarkable. The Trust is among the most successful initiatives of its kind in the nation. Just as The Children’s Trust works to protect the children of Miami-Dade County, it is important to us to ensure we protect it. When we invest wisely in children, the return on investment is a brighter future for us all.

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Appointed as State Attorney in Miami-Dade County in 1993 and elected in 1994, Katherine Fernandez Rundle is a second-generation lawyer who became the first Cuban-American State Attorney in the county and state. She was subsequently re-elected to eight terms and continues to serve as the county’s top law enforcement officer.

Carlos J. Martinez was elected Public Defender in 2008, and re-elected in 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024 without opposition. Carlos is the first Cuban-American Public Defender and the only elected Hispanic public defender in the U.S. He manages an office of about 400 employees, handling approximately 75,000 cases each year.