CRACK DOWN ON KIDS MEET THE TEENS IN LOCKUP
Conniff, Ruth
CRACKDDOEN ON Kids Meet the Teens in Lockup BY RUTH CONNIFF Short of prison, the last stop for young males who commit serious crimes in Wisconsin is the Ethan Allen School for Boys. Set in the...
...Right now there are 505 boys in the facility...
...During mv visit, three men arrive with one such kid—a short, black teenager with cornrows—and take him into a chamber to be stripped and showered, then into a holding cell across the hall, where a heavy door closes behind him...
...They say this place takes you away from your family," another kid chimes in, "but it's brought me closer to my mom...
...But half the reason they're functioning well is because everything is decided for them...
...It gives you an opportunity to find out who you really are...
...But here the experience is more concrete...
...The huge majority of government funding goes into what juvenile-justice professionals call "the deep end" of the system— locked institutions and prisons...
...And a big part of the Community Adolescent Program philosophy is getting kids lo empathize, and to see their offenses not as crimes against the state, but as specific harm done to other individuals...
...But politicians' attention wanders when talk turns to prevention and rehabilitation...
...He said nobodv wants to be in here...
...Certainly the boys themselves seem to think so...
...Hoots and wails emanate from other cells along the hallway...
...Restitution is a major component of the Balanced Approach...
...A guard in a riot-proof central control booth monitors the building and opens the automatic doors so kids who become violent or suicidal can be hustled in here...
...A couple of them are good at basketball...
...If we could put every one of those kids in a small, middle-class town with no gangs, we'd look like miracle workers," Schneider says...
...The bovs live in residential cottages, w'here ihey sleep in bunk beds or...
...And for those kids there is currently precious little supervision or help...
...Kids who are treated harshly, and who grow up in an atmosphere of deprivation and abuse, are Ethan Allen's future clients...
...Education, treatment, and skills development are a big pari of the program, he tells me...
...One month here costs the same as four months in corrections, and in many ways it's more effective...
...But they don't exactly seem like hardened criminals...
...says counselor Andre Johnson...
...He's doing real well...
...At the end of class the teacher holds a contest to see who can make the silliest face...
...Borrow five bucks, catch a bus, just get away from there...
...Of course, it's not so simple to just "take out" the bad kids...
...The missing piece, according to Schneider and just about everyone else in the juvenile-justice system, is adequate community support for kids...
...That's not Ruth Conniff is the Managing Editor of Hie Progressive...
...Like a lot of kids here, he has some pretty conservative ideas about fighting juvenile crime...
...If I would have known on the out that I could be a welder, I would have had goals," the former child drug dealer says...
...They listen intently to my introduction, and are quick to warm up and tell me about themselves...
...A couple of kids are lying limplv on mats on the floor...
...an outspoken critic of the new juvenile-crime legislation...
...Ethan Allen has a particularly forbidding aura...
...Nobody wants to be in here...
...We're still trying to raise kids...
...Everybody misses their mom.' ment could look good compared to where some of these kids come from...
...One pudgy white bov is placidly brushing his teeth and staring into space...
...Schneider describes an eighteen-year-old who sat in his office and wept when he was released from Ethan Allen because he didn't want to go back to his old neighborhood on 27th and Vine in Milwaukee's inner city...
...Some have been released from juvenile institutions early in order to be in the program...
...A kid with glasses raises his hand and asks to go first...
...I think people are forgetting a lot of what we have learned about what makes a delinquent...
...I've been crying out for prevention, and now we can't even talk about rehabilitation...
...One is good at cutting hair...
...Jean Schneider tells me...
...These models generally involve intensive supervision and daily contact with counselors...
...When I ask Carl what he did wrong, he looks embarrassed and says he'd rather not tell me...
...It passed a bill that will automatically send seventeen-year-olds to adult court, and will make it possible to waive kids as young as ten years old who commit murder into the adult system...
...Bits and pieces of his theory are practiced in a number of places around the nation...
...Since 1978...
...One of the saddest things I ever saw...
...This is starkly visible at Ethan Allen, where the biggest improvement on campus is the brand-new...
...is one of these kids...
...She comes to visit, and she never hugged me on the outside...
...Wisconsin, points out, "People have to understand that kids who go to correctional facilities do come back...
...It still has a low youth incarceration rate, compared to states like California...
...We talk about what we did...
...The Wisconsin legislature recently launched a crackdown on juvenile offenders...
...Five percent of the kids are responsible for most of the juvenile crime," says State Representative David Brandemuehl, Republican of Fennimore...
...Unfortunately, getting juvenile offenders more engaged with the community is exactly the opposite of what most state politicians have in mind...
...In a handbook describing Ethan Allen's programs and philosophy, the following statement appears: "We believe that delinquency can be overcome through strength of will, positive human relationships, effective programs, education, and economic opportunity...
...We can say anything we want to in here...
...There is no shortage of good ideas for dealing with kids who commit crimes...
...Each of these goals can help you focus your determination...
...who now lives in Oregon, is something of a celebrity among juvenile-corrections professionals...
...G over n o r To m mv I h o m p s o n noted that the facilities were inadequate and offered to do something about it...
...The staff have become like a family," one kid says...
...This is just a dramatic mind shift in how we treat our youngsters...
...and telling him...
...He bounds up and grabs my hand: "Hi...
...But now I've got my anger under control...
...People see me and they tell me I did a good job...
...His own father has been in prison since he was eight years old, he says...
...The thirty-five kids in the Dane County program work off their debt to their victims at jobs in the community...
...I'm Carl, and I'm good at math...
...But the other factors are pitifully lacking once they get out of this structured environment...
...If a kid serves six months of an eight-month sentence in a juvenile lockup, that leaves two months of follow-up therapy, community service, and supervision...
...Lots of times you'll see kids who function really well in a secure setting," says Andre Johnson, who supervises delinquent youth in Dane County's Community Adolescent Program...
...The topic of the day is risktaking, and the teacher starts class asking them to take a risk by meeting me, shaking my hand, and saying something positive about themselves...
...I don't think people in the community realize that it costs $50,000 a year to send a kid to Wales...
...If you read the literature, there are effective models for dealing with youth who are released from institutions...
...I got something to live for...
...But the length of care depends on the sentence handed out by juvenile court...
...The principal of Ethan Allen, Richard Winz...
...Now, before she leaves she wants to hug me three or four times...
...he says, indicating the first kid who spoke...
...I wanted to meet some of these kids and find out what they were like...
...At the most remote end of campus, a new...
...The inventor of the Balanced Approach, Dennis Malone...
...It also is allocating millions of dollars to build new secure facilities for juveniles...
...community-based program called the "Balanced Approach," which combines the principles of protecting the community, teaching juvenile offenders to be accountable for their crimes, and helping them develop skills...
...Pretty soon they'll come and take him back to his cottage...
...How do you define success...
...When I leave, this place will never leave my head...
...Then they come back to the same environment they left behind, and nothing has changed, and they slip back into their old patterns...
...maximum-security building has coils of razor wire wrapped around the roof, on top of the fence outside, and above the basketball courts in the backyard...
...Even later on...
...Everybody misses their mom...
...Ethan Allen has a capacity of 340...
...But even as people within the svstem become more interested in concepts like the Balanced Approach and reintegrating vouth into the community, the governor and legislators, along with the rest of the country, are moving in the opposite direction...
...kids in the program have paid back $600,000 directly to victims of juvenile crime...
...the guard in the control booth tells me...
...This is one major criticism of the growth of locked institutions as a response to juvenile crime...
...Scared-straight programs, prison tours for teens, and fewer chances for parole are some of the ideas the kids come up with when I ask what can be done to stem delinquency...
...Gordv...
...Ten young men...
...Schneider points out...
...state-of-the-art maximum-securitv building, touted repeatedly in flyers about the school...
...Some of the names in this article have been changed...
...Wisconsin pioneered a progressive...
...I got a little daughter, and I'm going to dedicate my life to her...
...The other kids smile and glance away when they take my hand...
...One young man named Gordy greets me shvly and explains that he is working on a video about sports at Ethan Allen, which might be used to promote continued funding for the athletic programs...
...Nobody believes that adult crimi-nals change for the better in prison...
...School kids and teachers around the state will tell vou the worst boys in Wisconsin go to Wales...
...But his life is going to be different...
...You learn there's consequences for your actions, and you get more freedoms as you progress...
...We have to take that 5 percent out...
...another kid explains...
...One of those places is the Community Adolescent Program in Dane County...
...You must be determined to be a champion of change...
...Clearly the idea of discipline and structure strikes a chord with them...
...Counselors in the Community Adolescent Program develop one-on-one relationships with juvenile offenders, and keep track of their problems in school, at home, and with the law...
...eight of them African-American, one white, and one Hispanic, are sitting around the room with a counselor...
...Wisconsin is at a turning point...
...This is where you're going to end up...
...The kids participate eagerly, hamming it up for each other...
...Bevond the maximum-securitv facility—"the hole" as the kids here call it—1 meet a lot of very polite young men in the school's classrooms, wearing white shirts and ties...
...It's much like what the serious sex offenders at Ethan Allen talk about in therapy...
...During the day they attend school, go to therapv sessions, and hold down campus jobs...
...If we raise these kids' performance in school a couple of grade levels, get their behavior under control, and give them their first positive learning experience, and then they go out and in a few years they reoffend, have we failed...
...After taking a tour of the school, meeting the kids, and looking over the grounds...
...Jean Schneider gets defensive when I bring up the issue of recidivism...
...Not exactly a structured reintegration plan...
...Boost-erism for the school, and for the whole concept of reform, is a common theme...
...one lanky seventeen-year-old says, "But this has helped me...
...I was prepared to see some disturbing sights...
...We believe that people can change...
...There is a program called aftercare available for kids who get out of locked institutions in Wisconsin...
...Like the kids at Ethan Allen, they strike me mainly as remarkably young, Soofy boys...
...With some trepidation...
...Now he is taking vocational classes to learn to become a welder...
...Of all these factors, strength of will is the most visible among the kids in the serious sex-offenders group...
...Set in the pretty, rolling countryside outside the town of Wales, it was originally built as a tuberculosis sanitarium...
...throws up his hands, talking about the violence and deprivation many kids are sent back into: "I tell them, if things are that bad, you have to get out of there...
...because of overcrowding, on extra mats on the floor...
...You need to get the kid to engage in the community in a productive way...
...savs Dane County circuit court judge Moria Krueger...
...after they get in trouble, many of the same leenaged bovs who are so often portrayed as the scourge of society are a lot like other kids...
...Half of our job is to work with families...
...But around here people know me...
...They all talk about learning to follow the rules...
...says superintendent Jean Schneider...
...But it appears to be true...
...The common thread, though, is self-improvement...
...The sports programs offer several goals vou can achieve . . . developing leadership skills . . . developing a positive attitude . . . learning to take instructions from authority figures...
...Kids who come to Wales are all considered a danger to their communities...
...And we talk with parents a lot...
...It's startling to think that this emironNobody wants to be in here...
...There is a special cottage for the serious sex offenders, who are kept separate from the general population...
...Ruth Conniff is the Managing Editor of Hie Progressive...
...he says...
...true here...
...Everyone agrees that kids need support and love early in their lives if they're going to thrive...
...A fifteen-year-old with a frizzy Afro and athletic socks pulled up to his knees raises his hand anxioush...
...Ask the foster mothers in Milwaukee, and they can tell you now which eighteen-month-olds will end up here...
...When 1 first came here, I went in the hole three or four times...
...All of them have committed serious crimes...
...In fact, recidivism among kids released from locked institutions like Ethan Allen is quite high...
...As Jim Moeser, the administrator of the Dane County juvenile court in Madison...
...They've committed crimes like batterv, armed robbery, and aggravated assault...
...says Flood...
...We could do a better job," admits Laura Flood, who runs the state's aftercare program...
...I visit a group-therapy session in this cottage...
...He dedicated the m.iximum-secur11 v unit in 1994...
...The whole place is currently being transferred out of the Department of Health and Human Services and into the Department of Corrections...
...Kids in the state's aftercare program get one face-to-face visit with a counselor each week...
...He's just waiting here while his room is cleaned...
...was when I got to work one day and a woman was taking her little five-vear-old son on a walk around the fence outside, to scare him...
...If public defenders can make a case that it is safe to release a juvenile offender into the community, he or she may go to the Community Adolescent Program, instead of to a locked institution...
...And given the increasingly punitive tone of public policy toward juvenile offenders, it's hard not to be cynical about the concept of juvenile reform...
...In the adult system, prisoners are just there to do time—to pay a price...
...and the pain and fear we put our victims through, about putting yourself in the other person's shoes...
...They are hungry for adult attention, and for the kind of direction that could help them function better in the community...
...You learn you can change...
...Some of the names in this article have been changed...
...What I wasn't prepared for was that many of these kids would share Schneider's belief in changing their lives...
...I get the impression from these kids, and from the kids at Wales, that reform just might work...
...extolling the virtues of discipline and teamwork: "It starts with determination, and determination is usually connected to a goal...
...I meet four kids at a Community Adolescent Program session, all of whom have been released from residential treatment centers...
...Ethan Allen, or Wales, as it's commonly called, could easily be mistaken for a prep school, except that the grounds are surrounded by tall, chain-link fences and razor wire...
...They shake my hand when we're introduced, and seem eager to talk...
...The Department of Youth Services reports that 52.6 percent of youth released from juvenile correctional institutions during 1989 went back to a juvenile lockup or to prison within four years...
...The young man who is happy to be recognized around campus tells me he was dealing drugs in his old neighborhood, starting when he was twelve years old...
...I'm recognized...
...He shows me the script he wrote, called "Champions of Change...
...You really get to know the kid," says Johnson...
...it turns out...
Vol. 60 • February 1996 • No. 2
