Juvenile Prisons
q First, let’s be honest: when you cannot leave you are “imprisoned” – ergo, kids are in prison not “correctional” institutions
q Any “treatment” that occurs is mostly incidental to the overall goal of custody and control, despite pronouncements to the contrary by officials
q Ever since the Houses of Refuge officials have tried to hide what goes on behind these walls, which is typically abuse disguised as treatment
Types of Institutions
q Short Term Facilities
q Adult jails
q Detention centers
q Shelter care facilities
q Long-Term Facilities
q Reception and diagnostic centers
q Ranches and forestry camps
q Boot camps
q Prisons – aka “youth correctional centers,” “reform schools” and “training schools
Detention centers
q Some negative effects of using detention:
– Promotes further delinquency via association with delinquent peers.
– Stigmatizes and reinforces a delinquent identity.
– Results in harsher treatment by decision makers.
– Accelerates further involvement in the juvenile justice system.
– Diverts resources from comprehensive community-based interventions.
– Reduces involvement and interaction with community-based services.
– Increases rejection by local public institutions such as schools.
– Promotes isolation, lethargy, and ineffectiveness.
– Results in overcrowding, punitive custody, and abusive conditions.
q Scandals about horrible conditions (The ghosts of houses of refuge remain today in the nation’s juvenile detention centers)
q “U.S. detention centers becoming warehouses for mentally ill youth” - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette survey found “that children with mental health problems stay in detention longer than others because placements can't be found for them”
q U.S. Senate’s Governmental Affairs Committee - Thousands of children are incarcerated in juvenile detention centers awaiting mental health services in the community; suicides high; warehousing common; costly ($100 million/year just for those waiting mental health placements
q Nothing new - 1991 report found that 62 percent of all detention facilities offered no treatment programs. Suicide in detention centers was much higher than at other institutions
q Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention called “Beyond the Walls Improving Conditions of Confinement for Youth in Custody”
q In one case a state signed an agreement to improve conditions at the their juvenile treatment facilities, costing $17 million.
q Human Rights Watch report called “High Country Lockup”
q Colorado - Virtually every institution is overcrowded and unsafe-the exceptions result from a court order and caps on numbers at small, specialized units like boot camps.
Shelter care facilities
q Status offenders and dependent, neglected and abused children; may also include foster homes and other group homes.
q Using the word “care” maybe misleading
q Typically found on the same grounds as detention facilities for juveniles.
q Dane County, Wisconsin - shelter “home”
q Scandals are common
q New York Times report - contracts cancelled with one of the oldest foster care agencies, St. Christopher's Inc., founded in 1881. An investigation discovered that they had “systematically falsified case records for scores of children in its care.” Files held evidence that the agency tried to cover up its neglect of the foster children's needs.
q Administration for Children, Youth and Families reported that out of 32 states reviewed up to May, 2004
q not one has passed the rigorous Child and Family Service evaluations.
q The review assesses the states’ ability to protect children from child abuse and to find permanent homes for kids who often languish in foster care.”
q The report noted that among the most severe problems were high caseloads, low pay for case workers, high turnover, and inadequate funding.
Girls and Boys Town
q An exception to the rule
q One located here in Las Vegas
q Operate both short-term facilities and long-term family environments (which started in Nebraska in 1917 as “Boys Town”)
q Internships available here in Las Vegas, by the way
Long-Term Facilities
q Reception and diagnostic centers
q usually attached to a juvenile prison – this is where they get diagnosed for classification purposes prior to entering the prison
q Some fit the image, while others resemble large institutions such as the Logansport Juvenile/Intake Diagnostic Center in Logansport, Indiana (pop. 20,000) – described as a “maximum security juvenile male” institution
q Oklahoma - “Reception and Orientation Center” (ROC) – based on a military model where they learn “compliance” – they are called “residents” rather than “inmates”
Ranches and forestry camps
q California is most famous for these
q Part of the California Youth Authority
q Probation Camps dot the state, esp. in LA area
q In spite of a recent decline in youth crime more institutions are being built or additional beds added.
q A total of 16 counties were funded between fiscal years 1997-98 and 2000-01, with just under $300 million for new or expanded detention facilities and 8 counties were receiving funds for new camps and ranches totaling $81 million
Youth “Correctional Facilities”
q Public & Private Facilities
q About 16% are in private facilities (proportionately more status offenders here)
q Racial composition
q 1950 - 23% of those in training schools were minorities
q 1960 - 32%
q 1970 - 40%
q 1989 - 60%
q 1997 - 66%
q Why the big increases?
Race & Incarceration Rates
q Table 12-6 - “If you’re white, you’re alright, if you’re brown, stick around, if you’re black, stay back.”
q black – 634
q Hispanic - 253
q whites – 155
q For drugs:
q black – 70
q Hispanic – 25
q whites - 11
Some Effects of Incarceration: the Inmate Social System and Victimization
q Several studies covering past 30 years paint a rather grim picture
q National Assessment of Juvenile Corrections (1976) - become more “hardened” over time
q the longer a youth remained in the institution, the more the youth would: (1) fight with other youths, (2) use drugs, (3) steal something, (4) run away, and (5) hit a staff member
q state-raised youth (Irwin’s study) - more or less “grew up” within various institutions and their world view becomes distorted, stunted, and incoherent while the prison world becomes their only meaningful world
q Columbus, Ohio study
q Strong prey on weak
q Brutal inmate subculture described as a “jungle”
q majority engaged in some form of exploitation
q 15-year follow-up
q inmate subculture still exists and victimizes the weak, although less for sex than for food, clothing and toiletries
q Treatment has “all but disappeared,” with the lone exception of a drug abuse program.
q One social worker said “We don't do anything in here for kids.”
q Another member of the staff added that “This place is a warehouse for children.”
The California Youth Authority
• Began in 1941 as a promise to rehabilitate youthful offenders
– Called its prisoners “wards” – as in a “ward of the state”
• Today it has 11 youth “correctional institutions,” 11 forestry camps, 59 detention facilities and several dozen “probation camps” scattered all over the state.
• Mission statement is revealing as they aim to:
– “protect the public from criminal activity by providing education, training, and treatment services for youthful offenders”
– “We treat all people with dignity, respect and consideration”; “We demonstrate behavior which is fair, honest, and ethical both on and off the job.”
The Reality
• Series of reports starting in 1980s has exposed the CYA as a brutal regime, with one report noting that the institutions
– “are seriously overcrowded, offer minimal treatment value despite their high expense, and are ineffective in long-term protection of public safety.”
• Life in youth prisons is violent and harsh. Thousands of youths spend their adolescence in an institution where their physical and emotional safety is threatened daily.
• 2004 audit also found that CYA failed to comply with minimum standards for education and failed to meet mandated treatment services
Education at CYA
• In order to allow violent wards to attend classes rather than remaining in lockdown, the CYA decided in 1998 to employ about 70 cages at the four highest security youth prisons.
– The cages, called “secure program areas,” were constructed of metal mesh or chain link fencing and contained a chair and a desk. The cages were arranged in a semicircle around a teacher’s desk.
Recent Scandals
• “We’re in an emergency situation and we need emergency action” - Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
– “This might be a big-ticket item, but the Legislature and the voters need to realize that we’ve starved this system for a long time—we’ve played it on the cheap—and it’s time to do something different.”
• Dan Macallair (CJCJ) “The California Youth Authority is a dinosaur . . . based on a 19th century model.” The institutions need to be torn down.”
• 90% recidivism rate
• Costs $85,000 a year per youth.
• Class action lawsuit filed in 2002 charging “that the CYA was improperly spending state funds on unlawful practices”
• A mentally ill inmate was locked in a filthy isolation cell for 23 hours a day for seven months.
– The toilet in the cell often did not function and he was fed “blender meals,” a whipped mix of food groups, through a straw pushed through his cell door.
• Two counties in the San Francisco Bay area stopped sending youths to the CYA in 2004.
• Newspaper accounts of brutal and inhumane conditions prompted one juvenile court judge to order that youths be kept in their home counties.
• A San Francisco supervisor called for a moratorium on all non-mandatory commitments to CYA
• As a result of the law suite the CYA was to be monitored and the first report said violence was “off the charts” and in which “medical care, psychiatric treatment, education services, gang management, and suicide prevention were inadequate.
• Inspector General report stated that the most troubling finding “is that many of the deficiencies that have not been corrected are central to the Youth Authority’s core mission of rehabilitating the young people entrusted to its care.”
• Court order resulting from the lawsuit
– CYA must change to smaller living units closer to a youth’s home
• Not all are happy with this and don’t support treatment, holding a stereotypic view.
• A retired corrections officer who was stabbed by a ward voiced the following opinion: “Who wrote this plan, Walt Disney? We’re not talking about bicycle thieves and runaways. These are murderers, carjackers, hard-core criminals. Therapy and coloring crayons aren’t going to help.”
• Ironically one of the reasons he was a victim of violence was the repressive policies and practices of the CYA
Will it Work? My Assessment
• Not much more than a political solution to pacify a public that is largely uninformed about the realities of youth prisons.
• It is a “political solution,” a “band-aid” used to fix a totally ruptured system that may need to be abandoned.
• Remains to be seen whether or not the court order will be effective.
• Given the history of “reforms,” the changes are most likely to be cosmetic in nature.
• The promise that treatment will be provided has a hollow ring, since the same promises have been made from the day the CYA opened more than 60 years ago.
• There are simply too many with a vested interest in keeping the system the way it is.
The Arizona Experiment
• Johnson v. Upchurch, 1986 lawsuit found that “policies, practices, and conditions of confinement” at this prison amounted to “cruel, unconscionable, and illegal conditions of confinement.”
– Forced AZ to get serious about treatment and so they set up a program that was supposed to “give youths a greater sense of control over their lives, to encourage them to affirm their own worth, and to engender hope for the future.”
• Within 3 months things started to go wrong
Reasons for Failure
• resistance from staff and administrators (administrators described as “authoritarian” in their management style) plus political opposition from conservative forces
• model program, but the working conditions for most staff members did not improve
• they continued to receive low salaries, demanding working conditions, menial tasks, and perceptions of lack of support and respect from superiors
• Biggest reason: various social and personal contexts that resulted in a person’s problems with drugs, gangs, and violence are left untouched.
• failure to establish a substance abuse program
High Recidivism Rates for juvenile prisons
• Range from 50 to 80+ percent
• California Youth Authority rates go as high as 91%
• Barriers to re-entry:
– Lack of educational options
– Lack of housing options
– Limited skills and education (only 11.5% of CYA kids passed the California High School Exit Exam)
– Gang affiliations and related racial tensions
– Institutional identity (hard to shake off)
– Drug problems
– Mental health problems
Barriers to Re-entry
• Lack of community support and role models
• Legislative barriers
• cutbacks in education grants (Pell), despite the fact that education is a proven antidote to criminal activity
• 1996 Welfare Reform Act prohibits offenders with a felony offense that involves drugs from receiving any cash assistance for the rest of their life
Background characteristics
• Knowing this is key to understanding why so many fail during “aftercare”
• “Aftercare” is a misnomer since not much “care” is given “after” release
• Many are “state-raised” youth with all sorts of deficits such as:
– Drug problems – many started using at age 12
– Education – (half never finished 8th grade)
– Mental health problems (68%)
• One report summarized these facts as falling into the following general categories:
– (1) they are still adolescents, with many experiencing “delayed emotional and cognitive development” largely because of emotional abuse and early drug use;
– (2) most of them “have never successfully used problem-solving or coping skills outside of the correctional setting”;
– (3) most “still have no adults in their lives to help them learn the skills they need to deal with” everyday life challenges.
• Still stuck at earlier stage of adolescence even though most are in late teens
• No transition assistance like that given to most HS grads
• See quote at end of chapter just before summary