The state of Maryland received some bad news recently. It seems that their most troubled youth detention centers have gotten worse over the past year. Scott Dance at The Baltimore Sun gives us some details:
Youth violence and staff uses of force spiked in 2011 at Maryland’s most troubled juvenile detention centers, according to an annual report by the state’s Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit, part of the attorney general’s office. The number of incident reports filed rose 25 percent from 2010 to 2011 across the state’s juvenile justice system to nearly 8,000, while some of the more violent categories of incidents increased even more.
Violent incidents noted in the report include:
- Systemwide, the number of melees and other large group disturbances doubled. (179 instances reported.)
- The Victor Cullen Center, a reform school in Frederick County, increased it’s use of handcuffs as restrains more than five times as often as in 2010. Youth-on-youth attacks there doubled, and assaults on staff members tripled.
Four particular hot spot facilities house roughly three quarters of the incarcerated youth population.
Cheltenham, Cullen, the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore County and the Baltimore City Juvenile Detention Center — four centers highlighted in the report because of their size or rates of violence — hold about 350 youths at any given time.
Overall, there are typically about 450 youths in state detention centers at a time, while 900 are in rehabilitation programs and reform schools. There are 5,700 released on probation to the community.
Forty to fifty percent of the roughly 230 youths detained at Cheltenham and the Baltimore facility at any time are not sentenced to the facility. They are, instead, waiting to be placed in a group home, substance abuse program or other type of treatment plan.
Once placed in a detention center, a person’s interim stay telescopes. While meant as a temporary measure, there is severe overcrowding in other youth facilities as well. This means that a stay meant to only last a few weeks frequently becomes a much longer wait for an opening to occur somewhere else.
While in the detention centers overcrowding is also a factor. Thirty-six thousand youths were referred to the department by the courts during the 2011 fiscal year. Since the department is required by law to accommodate any youth a juvenile court orders to be placed there, the problem becomes obvious.
I will once again refer to Mr. Dance’s excellent examination of the subject:
Many of the facilities have been stretched well beyond their capacity. The Hickey School, designed for 72 youths, housed more than that for nearly seven months of 2011, hitting a high of 97, according to the report. At Cheltenham, two of the main housing structures double up youths in 24 rooms meant for single occupancy, filling the buildings as much as 85 percent beyond capacity.
So we have kids that are just in there while waiting for a space at a group home who are incarcerated with violent offenders. This creates an environment where violence is rapidly learned as a means of self defense. Youth that would never have taken that path find themselves walking it in such an environment. Not only that, but it also is often the first step on the path to recidivism.
Image Source: Vectorportal, used under it’s Creative Commons license
