Last spring, there was concern that 2007 might bring another “summer of violence.” It might not have been precisely the “summer of peace” officials were striving for, but neither was it the fearful season that got everyone so agitated 14 years ago.
The legislature had a special session at the end of that summer of 1993 to address the problem of out-of-control teenagers targeting innocent strangers for random shootings, robberies and other mayhem. The lawmakers toughened prosecution of youthful offenders and began addressing the need for more detention facilities.
To Jerry Adamek, former director of Colorado’s Division of Youth Corrections, Ridge View Academy is “the best thing that came out of the summer of violence.”
It sounds like it might be a prep school, judging from its name and its grassy new campus. Its athletes do well in high school sports, and a team from Ridge View won Colorado’s high school robotics challenge last April. But Ridge View is not a prep school. It’s a juvenile correction facility.
It’s also known as the Ridge View Youth Services Center. It’s way out east, on the far side of the Arapahoe County landfill.
After the 1993 special session, the emphasis on dealing with juvenile offenders switched from rehabilitation to punishment. But Ridge View, which opened in July 2001, is an exception. The rest of Colorado’s youth corrections facilities are more like lockups. Teens who are lucky enough to be sent to Ridge View earn high school diplomas and GEDs, with a curriculum from the Denver Public Schools.
The students seem better behaved than at a regular high school. Probably it’s because there are about three staff members for every four kids.
Ridge View is a public-private partnership between Youth Services and Rite of Passage (ROP), which runs juvenile facilities in four Western states. It cost $51 million to build and has room for 500 boys.
Adamek, who retired from the state in 1998 and is now with ROP, says it costs $140 a day to keep an offender at Ridge View, some $35 to $60 less than at other youth corrections facilities. But then, Ridge View doesn’t take the real hard cases. It won’t accept anyone convicted of a sex crime or who has severe mental problems.
There’s a 60-day “boot camp” for new arrivals, to “file off the rough edges at the front end,” says Kent Moe, Mountain Region program director for ROP.
Adamek says it takes 14 to 16 months to turn an offender around, to get him to renounce his gang, get an education and leave with a job or college waiting for him.
Other juvenile correction facilities have 16-foot security fences around them. Beyond a gate guarding the entry road, Ridge View has only a 5-foot barbed wire fence “to keep the cows out,” Moe said.
Ridge View has a dress code, and a system of rewards and privileges for kids who do well. Those in the top of the four tiers wear ties and letter jackets, which they get to keep when they leave. And Ridge View maintains a well-stocked, un-vandalized library.
Everyone I met on a brief tour was respectful and seemed relieved to be away from gang pressure. And hopeful, too. “High expectations make a difference,” said Scott Nuanes, assistant principal.
When building started at Ridge View in 1999, all of the peaks on the ridgeline of the Front Range were visible from the campus. Thus the name.
Since then, the ballooning Arapahoe County landfill has blocked much of that vista. The view may not be what it was, but the optimism is still high.
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
