CITIZEN JOURNALISM: What do you think?

What do you think? Should less serious juvenile offenders be diverted into smaller, community-based programs? E-mail your comments to citizennews@washingtontimes.com.

You heard the stories. A youth misbehaved in the Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Center and was thrown into a room where ammonia was poured under the door, the noxious fumes serving as punishment for his actions. Youths routinely were locked in their rooms, more like cells, really, 23 hours a day for nearly a month at a time with no schooling.

Youths were stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement with no mattresses or sheets following suicidal gestures. Youths regularly complained of insects and vermin biting them in their rooms during the night while they were sleeping. Abuse became so common that one guard bragged to the media about using his forearm to strike a youth caught drinking during a football game.

Though those extreme abuses ended years ago, the decrepit old facility stood, until just a few months ago, as a testament to an outdated approach that was bad for youth and staff and detrimental to public safety.

On May 28, Oak Hill, the District’s euphemistically named juvenile jail, closed its doors, hopefully for good. Like many of the reforms under way at the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), this fulfills a 2001 recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Youth Safety and Juvenile Justice Reform.

After examining best practices, the commission, which I chaired and which included local leaders from law enforcement, business, academia, and religious and philanthropic organizations, recommended that Oak Hill be replaced with a smaller, more homelike and rehabilitative facility and that less serious offenders be placed into rigorous community-based programs.

In 2004, these widely shared goals were codified into law in a bill named after the commission, authored by then-D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty. Among other things, the law ordered the closure of Oak Hill within five years. After 41 years, 23 of which have been spent under court supervision, it is time to wish Oak Hill good riddance.

Oak Hill was not an anomaly; the much-maligned facility traveled the well-worn path of many such “reform schools” since opening in 1968. Its life course during those four decades was characterized by a cycle of scandal, cries for reform, short-lived progress, gradual entropy and, again, scandal, similar to the cyclical nature of many - some would say most - such large, prisonlike youth facilities.

This situation was true despite the fact that many of the staff over the years were well-meaning and worked hard to make a bad situation work for the youths under their care.

Juvenile justice agencies have similarly found themselves the subject of lawsuits and media exposes for sadistic practices in boot camps (Maryland and South Dakota), sexual abuse of youths by staff (Texas, Indiana and Ohio), youths placed in cages while attending school (California) and youths stripped naked and hogtied in their cells (Mississippi).

Not surprisingly, research into the effects of reform schools has found that confining youths in large, prisonlike facilities is one of the strongest predictors of future delinquency, even holding constant other factors such as prior record and current offense, lending renewed meaning to the phrase “schools for crime.”

Youths incarcerated in reform schools also experience worse educational and employment prospects and deteriorating mental health. Oak Hill, before its demise, was just a local example of a nationally replicated bad practice.

There are better ways to work with troubled youths, and the District is on the path toward such an approach. Diverting less serious offenders into community-based programs where they can be supervised, go through family counseling and learn useful skills has shown promise in reducing recidivism and improving educational outcomes.

Several jurisdictions, most notably Missouri, where commission members visited, have experimented with small, homelike, rehabilitative, secure care facilities - such as the state-of-the-art New Beginnings facility that the District opened in May to replace Oak Hill - and have shown marked improvements in youth outcomes and public safety measures.

The temporary setback the facility experienced when a youth escaped for two days during the center’s first two weeks of operation should not fool anyone into thinking New Beginnings is anything but a significant step forward for the District.

Juvenile justice experts report that such events are not unusual in newly opened facilities. Furthermore, escapes from the old Oak Hill facility were so commonplace despite its prisonlike design that in 2002, one out of every six youths confined there escaped. Already, delegations of elected officials from six states and countries as far away as China and Russia have toured New Beginnings to learn about the Districts new approach.

As DYRS has diverted some youths with less serious offenses to community-based services, their recidivism rate has declined by 19 percent. This has allowed DYRS to focus secure care on the youths who have committed more serious offenses, quadrupling the time they spend in secure custody, but in a much smaller and more rehabilitative setting.

Reconvictions of youths who left Oak Hill were cut in half, from 33 percent in 2005 to 16 percent in 2007, meaning our communities are safer and our young people are becoming contributing members of their/our communities.

Oak Hill’s demise is bittersweet. Bitter for the suffering and lost opportunities of so many youths over four decades, but sweet in that the District’s juvenile justice system is finally moving to a better place, where young people can truly have a chance to make a better choice, rendering our city safer as a result.

c Judge Eugene Hamilton is the former chief judge of D.C. Superior Court. In retirement, he is a senior judge, hearing occasional cases. He chaired the Blue Ribbon Commission on Youth Safety and Juvenile Justice Reform from 2000 to 2001 and is a member of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services Advisory Board.