Juvenile justice division centers filling up again

Youth commitments on rise

Most of the facilities that house and treat youths committed to Arkansas’ juvenile justice division are “at or over the ideal capacity,” according to the state Department of Human Services.

While state initiatives that began as far back as 2014 saw a gradual but dramatic decline in the number of children committed to the state Division of Youth Services — a shift that continued throughout the height of the covid-19 pandemic — recent data suggests that trend has reversed course.

Between Jan. 1, 2022, and Jan. 1, 2024, the number of youths committed to Youth Services custody increased by 65.92%, figures provided by the Human Services Department indicate, prompting officials to reopen a facility in Lewisville that closed in 2020.

While several experts and professionals involved with the juvenile justice system said even the most recent figures are down from where they were in 2015, and that it’s not surprising to see an increase in commitments after fears began to subside over the possible spread of covid in lockups, they also said the trend is nevertheless concerning.

A spokesperson for the Human Services Department, which oversees Youth Services, said neither the agency nor the division is responsible for making the choice to place children in its custody.

“Ultimately, the decision to commit youths to DYS custody rests with the courts, not with any policies or changes within DYS or DHS,” Gavin Lensnick said in an email.

However, a former deputy director for the Human Services Department, along with a circuit judge who chairs the Juvenile Judges Association and a state Supreme Court justice who chairs the Arkansas Commission on Children, Youth & Families, all said a lack of community-level and other less-restrictive alternatives often makes youth lockups the only available option.

The Division of Youth Services aims to provide “effective prevention, intervention, and treatment programs for youth involved in the Arkansas juvenile justice system,” according to its website. Its stated purpose

is to treat youths “so that they can flourish when they return to their homes and communities.”

The Youth Services Division has five facilities: the Lewisville site, the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, the Dermott Juvenile Treatment Center, the Harrisburg Juvenile Treatment Center, and the Mansfield Treatment Center, according to Lesnick.

Each center provides the same services for different populations, though the Arkansas Juvenile Treatment Center “also serves as the primary intake and assessment center for all youth committed to DYS,” he said.

Children can fall under Youth Services custody after being adjudicated “delinquent” by the court, which means they committed what would be a criminal offense if committed by an adult, according to the division. Court personnel conduct a risk assessment, known as SAVRY, which is meant to determine the level of risk those children pose to themselves or others and helps a judge determine what options for sanctions or rehabilitation best suit those youths.

According to state law, courts can commit a child into Youth Services custody when their SAVRY score falls between the moderateto high-risk range. The child remains in custody until their treatment is completed.In fiscal 2015, there were 540 commitments to Youth Services centers, according to the division’s 2023 statistical report. From fiscal 2016 onward, the numbers of commitments were:

■ FY 2016: 477

■ FY 2017: 438

■ FY 2018: 405

■ FY 2019: 350

■ FY 2020: 316

■ FY 2021: 266

■ FY 2022: 381

■ FY 2023: 408

Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Rhonda Wood, who also chairs the state Commission on Children, Youth & Families since 2015, said efforts to reform the juvenile justice system began nearly a decade ago, in 2014. The initial work on reducing commitments “was a deliberate process, and really lengthy,” and included a strategic push to introduce and expand the SAVRY assessment, as well as to retrain every juvenile officer, she said.

The drop in commitments that followed was “massive,” Wood said.

Keesa Smith, who became the executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families last February, had previously served as the deputy director of youth and families for the Human Services Department since 2013. She said that the agency was “making some really good strides” in reforming the system before the pandemic arrived in Arkansas in 2020.

By late 2018, the juvenile reform kicked into higher gear, with then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson announcing significant changes that included the cuts to youth incarceration and the amount of time children spent behind bars. The state released a 43-page “Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Plan,” covering 2018-2022.

Despite those successes, a https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/oct/13/youth-lockup-report-finds-little-is-cha/ September 2018 report assembled by the Center for Children’s Law and Poverty through a contract with the Human Services Department states youth confinement in Arkansas had fallen at roughly half the rate of the national average. The system also continued to be riddled with issues, such as keeping children locked up too long, even for misdemeanors; poor oversight; a lack of use-of-force training for officers; and insufficient data-keeping that prevents the best use of resources, according to the report.

The center urged the state, however, to consider this as “an opportunity to evaluate the state’s use of resources for residential services and other services for young people in contact with the justice system.”

The number of youths committed to the division fell so much, even if it didn’t meet the national average, that the state closed several facilities, including the Lewisville site that recently reopened, according to Smith.

She added that many judges had also adopted the SAVRY assessment, and that those involved hoped to expand community-level services for youths. Doing so would require pulling money spent on the facilities and instead placing it in these alternative programs.

“And the pandemic happened and it was obviously something that no one was prepared for,” she said.

As the world came out of the pandemic and the state’s three-year plan to reform juvenile justice wound down, it was once again time for the state to look ahead and determine its next steps, according to Smith. At the time, there was a heavy focus on what additional services children needed while they were committed to the division and how the state’s efforts to address those needs balanced with making necessary investments in community-level services, she said.

According to Smith, the Human Services Department didn’t devote more money to those community services before she left the agency.

Exacerbating that challenge, according to several experts, were the closures of numerous local juvenile detention centers that could otherwise hold youths for a shorter time than the sometimes-monthslong commitments that can occur under Youth Services custody. Many of those detention centers closed due to budgetary reasons, Circuit Judge Troy Braswell said in an email.

“While we try to avoid detaining youth, there are times that short detention periods provide safety for the juvenile and the community,” he said. “If you take this option away from local communities, the only reasonable option may be a commitment to DYS.”

Smith agreed, saying that in those situations there’s no choice but for those youths to go to the state, “and the state’s not equipped to handle the large increase in the number of children coming to it.”

COMMITMENT’S TOLL

However, the effects on the psyches of children who do feel like they’ve been imprisoned are “really hard,” Wood said. According to the justice, it can be difficult for youths to overcome and unwind from such an experience when they’re in such an early stage of development.

“I think the more we treat them like inmates and criminals, that’s how they’re going to act,” she said.

Commitments, especially when combined with few community-level rehabilitation opportunities available to children upon release from custody, make it less likely those youths will grow up to become productive adults, according to Wood, who described the consequences as “heartbreaking.”

“And then it feeds into that generational cycle,” she said. “They become the adults that have the next generation of the kids that we see in juvenile court.”

Smith said there will always be a range of children who come into some form of contact with the state’s juvenile justice system. However, she added that it’s important that the system be monitored to prevent children who have committed minor infractions from being placed in a lockup. A commitment “changes the trajectory for the child that hasn’t done something all that serious,” she said.

The former deputy director said she was “really disheartened to see such a large leap” in commitments during recent years, and that she didn’t believe available data reflected a proportional rise in crimes committed by minors.

“This means we’re sending more kids into lockup rather than looking for alternatives in the community,” she said.

Lesnick, the Human Services Department spokesman, said the agency is working with juvenile justices to ensure that commitment practices are consistent.

He said that, despite some flexibility in the division’s ability to adjust the number of beds it can offer, “the increases in commitments in recent months have most facilities currently at or over the ideal capacity.”

The department is working internally and with the courts to ensure the division can provide safe and appropriate services for the children in its custody, according to the spokesman.

However, Brooke Digby, the state’s juvenile ombudsman, has sharply criticized the state’s youth lockups for years. In a July 3, 2023, letter, she wrote that she was “absolutely appalled at what I am seeing inside of the DYS facilities.”

Writing to Rite of Passage CEO Ski Broman, who took over management of the facilities from Youth Opportunities LLC in 2020, she described the facilities as being “in a state of crisis” and in need of therapists. “If facilities have therapists, those therapists aren’t seeing their youth per the contract and/ or they aren’t doing a good job of documenting their services,” she said.

Additionally, numerous lawsuits — including at least four in the past two months — have been filed against companies with connections to the Youth Services Division, including Rite of Passage, alleging instances of sexual abuse against children at facilities and attempts to cover it up.

“Large settings are never going to be good for kids,” Smith said. “It’s always going to be problematic. You have to keep them as small as possible.”

COMMUNITY-LEVEL ALTERNATIVES

The Youth Services Division website states it “works to lead reform efforts and collaborate with juvenile judges, schools, and others working to prevent most youth from ever needing legal intervention and our services.”

Lesnick, the Human Services Department spokesman, said the division tries to provide treatment “in the least restrictive setting possible.” Its strategies include:

■ Making available “intensive” in-home services that serve as a possible alternative to Youth Services custody.

■ Increasing the available slots in the Civilian Student Training program, which is a roughly two-month residential program teaching such skills as behavior management, criminal behavior deterrence, physical fitness, and academic and life skills.

■ Routinely assessing the population in Youth Services custody to determine if non-serious offenders have progressed enough in their treatment to return to their communities.

■ Maintaining close contact with the courts to ensure they consider “all options for rehabilitation” before placing a youth in the division’s custody.

The partnership between the courts and local, state-funded community-based providers is important for providing less-restrictive alternatives to detention or commitment to the Youth Services Division, according to Braswell.

“Unfortunately, their funding remains stagnant and needs to be addressed,” he said. “It will prove difficult to partner with our community-based providers for new, innovative programs if they are unable to pay the increase in costs.”

Braswell also described himself as “deeply concerned” by the lack of inpatient substance abuse treatment options for juveniles, and for poor mental health service offerings overall.

“Too often, we see youth who are in desperate need of treatment turned away because of insurance issues or because the facilities have determined they are too disruptive or violent,” he said.

Braswell also warned that consideration of factors beyond commitment numbers is important when examining the state of juvenile justice in Arkansas. For instance, while it’s important to avoid “justice by geography,” data shows that poorer areas of the state have higher commitments to the division, according to the judge. Conversely, Faulkner County, where Braswell works, has seen a 72% reduction in commitments since 2015. He said that reform efforts are also succeeding in other parts of Arkansas.

It’s necessary for the state to examine those local areas with the highest commitment rates, such as some parts of the Delta, and work to determine the specific needs of those areas and ensure they have appropriate validated services for their youths, according to the judge.

“As a state, we are lacking the appropriate financial support for less-restrictive alternatives,” Braswell said.

Braswell said, though, that he believes Youth Services Division Director Michael Crump has shown “great leadership” and that the director has continued to work with the courts to ensure necessary services are provided. He also praised Human Services Department Secretary Kristi Putnam for being engaging and responsive to the courts’ needs.

Wood said that juvenile judges are frustrated with this lack of resources in their communities, because they do not necessarily want to commit youths to the division’s custody. Meanwhile, she added, the division and state officials are frustrated due to a loss of some sources of federal funding.

Smith, meanwhile, said Arkansans should remain invested in what happens to children who come into contact with the system.

“Juvenile justice has always been a hard area for the public to care about, but we have to because we really do have the ability to change the direction of children’s lives,” she said. “But you can’t do that without the proper funding and really creating a system that can treat kids.”