Then there was hope

South Carolina's Department of Juvenile Justice improves services, decreases recidivism

by Anna B. Mitchell

Published: July 30, 3:43 p.m.

Little natural light crept into the common room as Sgt. Mary Miller unlocked the front door to Sigma prison dorm.

The 6-and-a-half-foot-tall ceilings hovered, as oppressive as efficient at keeping the small space cool in summer, warm in the winter.

The 40-bed dorm’s two bathrooms offered little privacy as a four-foot cinderblock wall divided the two toilets.

Miller has worked for the Department of Juvenile Justice for 21 years and remembers the early 1990s when a dorm like this, built decades ago, held eight to 10 girls per room. The girls couldn’t fit in the 8-foot-by-12-foot quarters and spilled out into the hallways.

“I have a mission,” Miller said, “to save these juveniles. This is not a stopping point but a starting point.”

Such is the prevailing attitude at the Broad River Road Complex of Juvenile Justice, considered among the worst facilities in the nation a decade ago. There is no mistaking this is a prison – razor wire encircles the complex and separates boys, girls and various kinds of offenders among four campuses.

But the kids leave now with an education, counseling, substance abuse treatment, job goals and – perhaps most importantly – probation officers who already know them and are waiting in their home counties.

“Coming out of the institution, there is a higher sense of optimism,” said Miller, who doubles as the campus’ gospel choir director. “There is a sense of ‘I can do this’ rather than that hopeless, ‘What do I do now?’ They leave with a plan.”

Recidivism rates have decreased and the prison population of 12- to 17-year-olds is less than a third of what it was two decades ago. In May, the average daily population was 310. It pushed 1,200 in the early 1990s.

Rooms designed for two girls or four girls never exceed their capacity, Miller said.

“We treat them like young adults,” said Harold Mayes, the director of the Greenville County Juvenile Justice office. “If you treat them like animals, they will behave like animals.”

Ongoing budget cuts, experts fear, could reverse the agency’s gains, which its leaders attribute largely to prevention and rehabilitation programs in each of the state’s 46 counties. Strip that local touch from Juvenile Justice, they say, and the numbers will rise again at the agency’s facility of last resort.

Karen Chinn, an independent juvenile justice consultant based in South Carolina, has followed the agency closely for seven years, writing reports in 2005, 2007 and this year.

“I am one who can certainly stand back and say what an incredible improvement we’ve made,” Chinn said. “It’s a different agency in terms of morale, cross training, security and treatment of the kids.”

Overcrowding landed the agency in federal court in 1990. Six young inmates filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit citing unconstitutional conditions at the Broad River Road Complex. The plaintiffs said they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, inhumane treatment and denial of due process. They cited unsanitary conditions, arbitrarily harsh discipline, lax fire safety and inadequate separation of violent offenders.

A U.S. judge ordered improvements in 1995, but little progress was made over the next seven years as the agency spent millions of dollars on attorneys and court monitors in appeal after appeal.

Those ended when former Family Court Judge Bill Byars took over the agency in 2002, embraced the court’s orders and focused on keeping kids out of Broad River. Today, more kids are placed in wilderness camps and group homes than behind the razor wire.

“The deeper they are in the system they are least likely to have success,” Byars said. “They have more problems and are influenced by kids who are really bad.”

After this year’s budget cuts, Byars is running a much leaner Department of Juvenile Justice – 285 people have been laid off out of a workforce that started the 2008-2009 fiscal year with 1,800 people. He’s now turning to an army of volunteers – more than 1,200 – and private donations that exceeded $3 million this past year to keep programs going.

Most of the people he lost were in community programs such as the 40 teen after-school centers, five state-owned group homes, a wilderness camp and 18 juvenile employment centers. County offices also lost intake and probation officers and office help.

One local program Byars said he is committed to protecting against any cuts is the Intensive Supervision Officers. Numbering 50 statewide, each of these officers carries a caseload of no more than 20 kids who are on probation after serious brushes with the law and are most at risk of getting into trouble again. A regular probation officer with lower-risk kids may have four times that many cases.

“You want to intensively supervise the kids and intervene with the family in the community if you can do it safely,” Byars said. “And it’s a little cheaper.”

It cost up to $50,000 a year to house juveniles at Broad River, Byars said, while assigning a special officer with a limited case-load may cost a couple thousand a year.

“I’ve got kids in here who committed murder, drug dealers, kids who have broken into houses, cut people, shot people,” Byars said. “I have people who have shoplifted in stores, but I also kids who have been treated terribly. Many of the kids don’t believe the way most of us live. The saddest thing is they find the safest, warmest, fuzziest place they have been is a prison, and they are afraid to go home.”

Anna Hall is an intensive supervision officer in Anderson County. She said she starts visiting her kids six months before they are released, developing an education and treatment plan with them and their families. She may recommend a parent enter treatment or she may help a kid fill out financial aid forms for a community college.

They all have her cell phone number. She sees them at least once a month, but they can call anytime – holidays and weekends.

“They may be upset and just need someone to talk to,” Hall said. “We are always able to be reached.”

Last week she drove 30 minutes to see one of her boys. She sat across from him in his family’s small living room.

His blonde hair hung down from a baseball cap turned to the side. Hall’s job is to make sure he stays in school and reports to family counseling and substance abuse treatment.

After half an hour, he made eye contact with her and talked about his favorite game systems.

The key is face-to-face time with kids before and after they are released to get to know them and figure out what services they need and are entitled to, Hall said.

 “We are not a revolving door anymore,” Hall said. “People who have been here long-term have seen the good days and the bad days.”

Byars planned to add 10 intensive supervision officers this year but couldn’t afford it. He said he knows the delicate balance of community-based programs he’s created has produced results:

The agency handled 23,000 children’s cases statewide this most recent year, 18 percent less than six years ago.

Recidivism plummeted 42 percent from 2008 to 2009 – to a record low of 12.4 percent as of May.

The total number housed at Juvenile Justice facilities, be it a wilderness camp or maximum security cell, fell from 1,475 in May 2008 to 1,250 in May 2009.

“He carefully built this agency up,” Chinn said. “It’s so upsetting.”

Chinn wrote to lawmakers in February 2009 that further cuts would inevitably lead to “unconstitutional” conditions again at the Broad River Road Complex.

“(The Department of Juvenile Justice) will simply warehouse troubled youths prior to returning them to towns in South Carolina,” Chinn warned legislators in her report. “There will certainly be a resurgence of overcrowding in DJJ facilities due to dormitory closures and the elimination of alternative beds.”

Some funding was restored to Juvenile Justice after Chinn’s report, but the state’s board of Economic Advisers announced last week that coffers will fall short by another $200 million this coming year.

It is unclear whether a 4 percent across-the-board cut will apply to Juvenile Justice – or whether the cuts the agency has already sustained will affect recidivism rates.

“Many of the people working here have been through really tough times,” Byars said. “All they wanted was a chance to do what it is they know how to do.”