If it Looks Like a Prison...

 

Another Aedifice@ has been constructed to house a portion of the Adangerous classes.@  It is the latest in a long line of institutionalization in America, dating back to Ahouses of refuge@ in the early 19th century.  Amid much fanfare, with color photos of a spotless, shinny new prison cell in the Review-Journal, this prison - in newspeak language, called a Acorrectional center@ - was opened on June 1.  It is called the Summit View Youth Correctional Center (located on a 13-acre plot of land on Range Rd. near Nellis Air Force Base) and it will be operated by Youth Services International, a subsidiary of Correctional Services Corporation, one of a handful of private corporations "cashing in on crime."

I was given a tour of this institution recently.  Approaching this institution you could tell what it was long before arriving.  There is barbed-wire fencing all around, including additional rows surrounding certain areas within the grounds.  It is a maximum-security institution and looks like it.  I had to ring a bell in order to get through the gate, and then after getting inside had to pass through a security scanner (Garrett is the name of the company that manufactured it and it is called a AMagnascanner@). The plague on the outside of the building says that this Acorrectional center@ is AA Project for Improvement of Nevada=s Youth.@

Throughout my tour the emphasis on security was paramount, almost an obsessions.  Literally every door we entered required the use of a key!  And everywhere I went there were reminders that this was a prison in every sense of the word - the steel doors that made a sound like no other (it almost reminded me of the sound I heard when I once toured Marion Federal Penitentiary in Southern Illinois - the ultimate in maximum security prisons); the cells with metal furnishings, with a bed made out of cement which had a single mattress on it; the Asegregation unit@ (newspeak for Athe hole@ or solitary confinement); the seats in the dining area (metal, with no backs), etc. 

My tour guide, Facility Administrator Sherwood Hanford, is a thirty-year veteran of work in the corrections industry.  Ironically he supports most of the ideas of one of the ultimate anti-institutional reformers, Jerome Miller, who was responsible for boldly closing down some of the ancient Areform schools@ in Massachusetts in the early 1970s.  Mr. Hanford appears share my dislike of institutions.  He should know, having worked in them for so long.

The cost to build this came to just over $14.7 million, a surprise since the original price tag was to be $20 million. On top of this money, the annual operating expenses will be an average of $43,000 per kid. On the day I took the tour, there were 30 youths - notably there was not a single white youth there, as all were either Hispanic or African-American. (More about this later.) While the capacity is for 96 offenders, the original plans called for providing some extra space within the grounds for two more buildings that would house 96 more.  History suggests that what happens is what I have called the Field of Dreams Syndrome - "If you build it, they will come."  I=d like to share some of this history with the reader, in order to get a broader perspective on this institution.

 

A Brief History of Juvenile Institutions

 

We have had a history of what I have termed the edifice complex - the tendency to think that we can solve complex human problems by building Aedifices@ - large buildings like courthouses, police stations, prisons, jails, mental institutions, "assisted living" for those elderly one step away from the grave, etc.  We love these edifices.  Well, at least politicians do.  After all, when they come up for re-election or long after they retire, they can always point to some edifice to indicate their accomplishments while in office.  It doesn't matter that the problems these edifices were suppose to solve never went away (they usually get no better, and often get worse).  Also, as I have repeatedly said, "nothing succeeds like failure."  After all, these edifices benefit mostly those who build them, finance them and operate them, more than those who find themselves processed within them.

Edifices for the young began in the early part of the 19th century, when the New York House of Refuge was opened in 1824.  Supporters called this institution a Aschool.@  In the words of the original founders of this institution, this Aschool@ would be a place where the boys (girls were added later) would be Aput to work at such employments as will tend to encourage industry and ingenuity, taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and most carefully instructed in the nature of their moral and religious obligations, while at the same time, they are subjected to a course of treatment, that will afford a prompt and energetic corrective of their vicious propensities, and hold out every possible inducement to reformation and good conduct." 

The kids who were sent to this institution usually committed no crime, but were sent there to prevent them from Agrowing up in idleness and vice@ (to use a common phrase of the time).  It was a concerted effort be the rulers of New York to control the Adangerous classes@ - at this time the Irish.  Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that well over half of those youths sent to this institution were Irish.  In later years, as the Irish become more assimilated, other European immigrant children earned the label of Adangerous@ and were sent there.  In the modern era, those who are sent to these places are disproportionately minorities - in most cases they are the numerical majority, as in Summit View.

Youths who committed no crime (often sent up for being Aincorrigible@) were sentenced to these institutions based in part on a doctrine known as Parens Patriae, borrowed from early English Chancery Courts where the term referred to the belief that the King or a representative could act on behalf of children from wealthy parents who had died and thus would help such children manage their estate.  The term was used in America to justify state intervention into the lives of mostly poor families who could not care for nor control their children.  Houses of Refuge, like other institutions to follow, would seemingly act Ain the best interest@ of these children.  Mere words that are too often contradicted by the reality of institutions.

The history of juvenile institutions subsequent to the houses of refuge is a tale of often unbelievable cruelty and corruption.  Eventually houses of refuge succumbed to the usual problems of overcrowding, poor management, cruel treatment and numerous scandals.  They were eventually replaced by Areform schools,@ which in turn gave way to Aindustrial and training schools@ (later just plain Atraining schools@) and finally in the present era, Ayouth correctional centers.@ Have these institutions had much of a positive effect on crime?  Hardly. 

It should be stressed that throughout this history the Aedifice complex@ has been accompanied by the afore-mentioned Afield of dreams syndrome@ - if you build them, they will come.  Specifically, the main solution to overcrowding within existing institutions is to merely build more institutions, which in turn become overcrowded, with calls for more institutions.  With the recent opening of the Summit Youth Correctional Center, will the same results occur?  Based on history, absolutely!  After all, one of the main reasons for the building of this institution is to relieve overcrowding in other Nevada institutions (Spring Mountain Youth Camp is suppose to hold 112 youths and presently holds around 200).  The first 30 youths sent to Summit came mostly from other institutions in the state.

There are numerous questions that need to be raised at this time about the opening of the Summit View Youth Correctional Center.  What kinds of youth will be confined here?  By what criteria are they selected?  Was this really needed?  Are there alternatives?  Space does not permit an attempt to answer all of these questions, but I would like to briefly call into question some of the criteria used to determine what sorts of kids will end up here.

 

Dubious Criteria

 

Last year I reviewed a document prepared for the Nevada State Legislature, showing the criteria that would be used to determine what kinds of offenders would qualify for what was called a "Level IV" institution, theoretically reserved for the most serious and chronic offenders (at that time Nevada did not have such a high-security institution - which is what Summit View is).  I discovered that each juvenile offender is classified into one of four levels based upon a "juvenile offense history worksheet" with a composite "offense history score" (a total number of points assigned to each offense).  I have many objections to "classification schemes" no matter what they look like.  In my view they too often tell us more about those who designed the scheme than those who are so classified!  To put this problem in a current perspective, where would the youths who were responsible for the school shootings in recent years be placed?  Since these perpetrators had little or no history of offenses, they certainly would not have been placed into any of these four levels, much less level four.

To begin with, to assign any numerical value to a specific offense is by definition arbitrary.  What was used was called the "1999 Offense History Rating Sheet," which is a compilation of a particular youth=s charges each time a referral was made to the juvenile court.  This system placed offenses into four categories: (1) minor, (2) serious, (3) severe, (4) violent.  I searched in vain for some scientific basis, some rationale for these categories. None was supplied. Examples of the problems I found in this rating sheet was the that "grand  larceny auto" was rated as "severe" while "grand larceny" was "serious" (no rationale was given). I also discovered that a "bomb threat" was classified as "serious," but not "severe" or even "violent."

But these criticisms are only the beginning.  As suggested above, there are points assigned to various offenses.  For instance, 60 points is assigned for a violent offense, but only 12 are assigned for a "severe" offense.  Within the "violent" category we find armed robbery, yet within the "serious" category we find stalking.  Is robbery five times more severe than stalking?  (I'm sure a lot of women would question this!)  Also, it appears that the possession of marijuana is equally as serious as wife abuse (obviously some of these apply more to adults than juveniles, but the point is still relevant here).  What is the rationale for this?  And why would auto burglary and grand theft auto be twice as serious as domestic violence (12 vs. 6 points)?  Are we saying that an automobile is worth more than a woman who is abused or being stalked?   It appears so.

Perhaps the most important criticism of this classification system is that it appears to focus almost exclusively upon a relatively few criminal behaviors of a youth, which in turn represents only a tiny fraction of all the behaviors this youth has engaged in over the course of his or her lifetime.  From these few behaviors we draw a conclusion about what kind of a person this youth "really" is.  I would hope that for someone to reach a point in their lives where they would require being locked up in what amounts to a maximum security prison, it would be based upon a lot more than this.

Any attempt to create a "just" sentencing structure (whether for juveniles or adults) is bound to be imperfect at best.  This has been shown repeatedly throughout history.  One of the most important problems - as I have noted here - is that we are too often basing a sentence on only one aspect of an offender's life, namely his or her "offense history."

 

Punishment vs. Treatment

 

These are all examples of "letting the punishment fit the crime" as originally postulated by classical criminologists like Jeremy Bentham more than 200 years ago.  This is, of course, the classic "deterrence" argument, that you can prevent people from committing crimes by instilling the fear of punishment.  The problems with deterrence are numerous and I will not go into detail here.  Suffice it to say that as far as juveniles are concerned, the deterrence argument is weakest (most juveniles by their nature rarely plan their offenses and few think about consequences).

This is especially clear when we consider that the main purpose of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation of young offenders (certainly we pay lip service to the victims, even believing that by punishing more, then somehow victims will be protected more). One question is: does placement into one of the four "levels" mean that different "levels" of treatment are forthcoming?  This is doubtful.  Also doubtful is the contention - generally assumed in this classification scheme - that a certain number (there's that word "number" again) of prior offenses and/or types of offenses means that a certain level of treatment is forthcoming. 

At Summit there are many different Atreatment modalities@ in operation: one-on-one counseling, group counseling, vocational training.  When asked whether the models used by Youth Services International have ever been evaluated, Mr. Hanford was not aware of any.  This is not at all unusual, for there are few long-term follow-up evaluations of such programs.  Most evaluations show minimal success, if any.  On the positive side I did learn that the particular treatment program in operation here seems filled with possibilities. It was designed by Dr. Jon McCaine, a clinical psychologist in Tucson, Arizona, highly regarded in the field I have learned.  Whether or not this has been proven to be successful remains to be seen, as I am awaiting documentation.

 

Backward Priorities

 

By this time the reader is no doubt wondering what alternatives would I recommend?  It just so happens that I have one.  First, I need to raise one important issue, namely, what are the priorities of the adults who control the state?  Are we really committed to serving the needs of our youngest citizens?  State Senator Valerie Wiener spoke at the grand opening of Summit View and something she is quoted as saying deserves repeating.  She stated that there is Aa need for parents, teachers, law enforcement officials and civic leaders to address at-risk youth before they end up in facilities like Summit View.@  An obvious truism, but why do such youth end up in such a facility?  One major reason is that there is so little money available for desperately needed services and programs for these kids because the state of Nevada (and our state is not alone here) has decided to spend almost all of our money at the back end of the system!

Viewed historically, this is nothing new, for we have always done it this way.  Why?  There are many possible reasons, but one stands out all by itself: it is more profitable to spend money at the back end, since such expenditures are part of the Acrime control industry,@ meaning big business and big government (in this case the Acriminal justice industrial complex@).  Also, building these edifices and the use of various forms of high-tech hardware, such as security devices, barbed-wire fencing (like those that surround Summit View), weapons, etc. are very hyper-masculine, reflective of a very patriarchal society.  This fits in nicely with a Aget tough@ philosophy so dominant in this society.

            On the other hand, preventive measures like counseling, drug treatment, recreational programs, anger management, tutoring, etc. represent a Asoft@ or Afeminine@ approach.  And this approach does not sell, it doesn’t make a profit because anything remotely Afeminine,@ anything done mostly by women, has been degraded, ignored,  minimized and marginalized in our society (most jobs performed by women throughout our history have received both low pay and low prestige). 

So it should come as no surprise that so little is spent on prevention.  We profess to be Achild-centered,@ with such hallow slogans like Achildren are our future,@ yet we rank number one among industrial democracies in child poverty and many other measures of child welfare (e.g., infant mortality rates).  The appropriations from the 1997 Nevada Legislature provides some evidence of this (I cite this year because within this budget was money for Summit View).  There is an old saying that one should always "follow the money."  Well, in following the money we find that just under $30 million was to be spent on "infrastructure and capital improvements" ($20 million was allocated for Summit View), while a comparative pittance of only $3.5 million was to be spent on "programs and enhancements," which included the embarrassingly paltry sum of $210,000 for drug and alcohol treatment programs! 

Before I offer some alternatives, I should note the following crucial facts: with the opening of Summit View, the expansion of Spring Mountain Youth Camp and additions at the detention center at the Clark County Juvenile and Family Court Services, Nevada will probably rank first in the nation in the juvenile incarceration rate.  The most recent figures had us ranked second, behind California (and to the best of my knowledge no new juvenile facilities have been opened recently in California).

 

A Better Way

 

In a previous article in Las Vegas City Life (see "A promising method of reducing crime") , I introduced a model program started in San Francisco, called the Detention Diversion Advocacy Project (DDAP) - now with identical programs in Washington, D.C., Montgomery County, Maryland and a new one proposed for Oakland.  Based upon my own evaluation (published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention), such a program has shown the capability of reducing serious youth crime by 50%.

In brief, this program combines the techniques of case work (what social workers do) with lawyering - that is, advocacy.  Case workers, with case loads of around ten youths, work closely with Ahigh risk@ youth already found in juvenile detention, assigning them to one or more community-based programs.  The treatment plan for these youths is quite rigid and structured, and they are closely monitored and are not allowed to merely Ado time@ in an institution.

My evaluation of the San Francisco DDAP program found that, compared to a control group of equally high-risk offenders who remained within the juvenile justice system, the recidivism rates after a three-year follow-up were about 50% less (specifically, 34% vs. 60%).  Even when comparing the two groups according to age, race, gender, prior records and other variables, the recidivism rates were consistently half the control group.  Moreover, subsequent referrals by the control group youths were far more likely to include violent crimes than the DDAP kids.

The main reason for the success of DDAP is surprisingly simple: numerous programs geared toward the needs of the youths were made available, there was constant supervision and the program case workers demonstrated a strong sense of caring for these youths combined with a positive attitude toward their potential.  In short, they believed that these youths could do better and a self-fulfilling prophecy resulted.