Is Detention Center Best Plan?
December 7, 2003
By ROBERT FRANCIS, Connecticut Post     

In the November 18th episode of Judging Amy on CBS, Maxine Gray, a DCF social worker blew her cool over a case of young teen being transferred from a group home to a secure psychiatric facility because there was no longer funding for the group home. When she finally caught up with the young lady, she was bruised and in shackles because she had gotten into a fight -- all this despite the fact that she did not have a psychiatric problem. When Maxine did further research she found 12 other young girls being transferred to psychiatric facilities who did not have psychiatric problems. Outraged, she marched into the Commissioner's newly refurbished office and demanded that appropriate services be provided for these children or she wasn't leaving.

Outrageous? Hardly!!! Half of this story plays out in Greater Bridgeport "every day," and it's the part where appropriate services for young people in trouble are not available and young people are inappropriately placed where they do not get the services that they need!

What do all of these young people have in common?

One, they need help, not incarceration! They would benefit from getting treatment or help with their substance abuse, mental health, special education, child abuse or neglect problem, but instead they receive detention or CJTS - both jails! Connecticut is the leading state in the country for incarcerating young people. These are young people in need of help and if they got appropriate help there may be little need for secure confinement.

Second, in a recent study of the Bridgeport juvenile court over 80% of young people in detention or CJTS are there for low-level crimes or violations of court orders. These are young people who are not a threat to society or themselves but somehow, Connecticut believes that they will benefit from a jail like setting.

Third, most of these young people are youth of color. Over 65% of youth on juvenile probation are Black or Hispanic; over 80% of youth in detention are Black or Hispanic: and over 85% of young people in secure confinement (CJTS or other locked facilities) are Black or Hispanic. This, despite the fact in a recent RYASAP survey of middle school and high school youth about their violent and/or other criminal behavior the number of Black and Hispanic youth compared with white youth committing these offenses is identical. Why are only Black or Hispanic youth arrested, placed in detention and eventually wind up in our state youth prison? Why does Connecticut, an enlightened Northeastern state, seemingly discriminate against young people of color?

The part of the Judging Amy episode that is outrageous is that DCF caseworkers, judges, prosecutors, public defenders, service providers, state legislators or the community at large don't ever seem to get outraged that services that would keep young people with behavioral health and special education problems out of jail are not being provided. They don't rise up and confront the system that is so damaging to their children. As a matter of fact, besides Jeanne Milstein, the Connecticut Child Advocate or Martha Stone, the Director of the Center for Children's Advocacy there isn't anyone who seems to get outraged. Why is this?

Connecticut has no comprehensive juvenile justice plan, nor does it have an over-arching philosophy to prevent young people who are at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system out of the system. Without a plan we continue to propose new and even more punitive laws - taking DNA from teenagers; opening juvenile records for the world to see; and transferring more youth to adult court where they are 50% more likely to recidivate than if they remained in juvenile court. We build larger and more secure detention centers in Hartford and secure long term facilities like CJTS so we can lock up more young people with substance abuse, mental health or special education problems for low level criminal or even non-criminal behavior. We also propose an 88-bed juvenile detention center for Bridgeport although we have no long-term plan for what we want to do with young people in Connecticut. As a footnote, the average number of young people in Bridgeport detention on any given day is less than 25 young people. On top of this, the governor and the legislature severely reduced the number of juvenile probation officers who work with young people in the community and the amount of money available for community based services to keep young people from entering the juvenile justice system.

So what is our response? Connecticut has not had a comprehensive juvenile justice plan in over twenty years! And yet, without a comprehensive plan or vision of what we want to accomplish with our young people, we continue building larger jail-like detention centers and a large state training school. My experience has been that "if you don't have a plan, there is no road that will get you there." We have an emergency in Connecticut! All of the responsible sectors -- the courts, the Connecticut Department of Children and families, other state departments, the legislature and the community, need to sit down and prepare a comprehensive plan that proposes a habilitative system where all young people in Connecticut who need help, get help; not incarceration! The legislature then must have the guts to allocate the funds to implement the plan and it must have the guts to rid itself of past mistakes like CJTS, large detention centers and continuing punitive instead of rehabilitative responses. Economic developers and Bridgeport legislators need to take a deep breath and look beyond the possibility of having a shiny new building in the downtown area. They need to ask the question - is this the best solution for our young people and is it the best thing for our community? Bridgeport's juvenile court and detention center are located dilapidated facilities. However, do we need an answer to our juvenile justice problems that is reliant on a new detention center? Connecticut has an unplanned, incredibly fragmented and under-funded juvenile justice system that incarcerates young people who should get help them in the community. It should be doing everything it can to keep kids out of detention - not building oversized detention facilities that it will find a way to fill!