A coalition of children’s advocates, including the ACLU, Disability Law Center, and Public Defender, just released the results of an investigation into Colorado’s Division of Youth Corrections (DYC). It is a brutal exposé and a stinging indictment of a system in crisis, a system plagued by violence and mistreatment, a system that routinely uses solitary confinement and the intentional infliction of pain on children.
Despite the best intentions of youth corrections leaders across the country, most youth facilities still operate more like prisons than rehabilitation centers. Colorado’s DYC is no exception.
Certainly our leaders have made some changes. They describe adopting the sanctuary model, trauma-informed care and positive behavior supports. The legislature has helped by increasing both funding and staff.
Yet, as this report clearly shows, for a variety of reasons, there is a continuing culture of violence and fear in Colorado’s youth facilities. Significant numbers of assaults, fights and critical incidents occur on a regular basis. Accounts of mistreatment of youth are distressingly common. DYC staff and youth consistently report widespread feelings of fear, danger and distrust. In this climate, it is no wonder that staff all too frequently resort to solitary confinement, mechanical restraints and pain compliance techniques when young people act out. It is not a formula for success. Violence begets violence.
Something is going very right for juvenile offenders in Missouri. I recently visited that state’s Division of Youth Services to see first-hand how Missouri has set the gold standard for care of incarcerated youth. I saw that they received the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Governmentap prestigious Innovated Government Program award. I knew that young people and staff in Missouri’s facilities are less likely to be assaulted or injured than their counterparts in other states. And I knew that Missouri’s youth recidivism rates are low and their educational outcomes were high.
I wanted to understand how it was that Missouri was holding the toughest, most incorrigible, drug-addicted and gang-involved offenders in an environment that was safe and comfortable for both kids and staff. When I asked Dr. Phyllis Becker, director of Missouri’s Division of Youth Services, she had a simple answer: “Itap about relationships and culture.” She invited me to Missouri to experience it first-hand. So, along with leaders from the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections, and a representative from the ACLU of Colorado, I went to the Show Me state.
What we saw in Missouri was extraordinary and inspiring. Instead of prison-like facilities as in Colorado with locking cells, sally ports, solitary confinement rooms, cinderblock walls, metal toilets, and half-inch mattresses, the Missouri facilities were homey, comfortable and personalized. Kids wore their own clothes, slept in bunks and decorated their dorms with personal items. Their rooms and furniture were designed to encourage intimate group conversations and to support the positive peer culture that is at the heart of their model. Young people reported strong, caring, personal relationships with staff. We repeatedly heard from kids that staff was there to help them understand what is driving their negative behaviors and to teach them coping skills. Their mutual respect was palpable.
Missouri’s children, staff and leadership confirmed over and over again that incarcerated children are never placed in solitary confinement, shackles or straitjackets and are never subjected to pain techniques to enforce compliance. Indeed, the only mechanical restraints used in Missouri are handcuffs, and leadership reported to us that the last use of handcuffs occurred six years ago.
Why doesn’t Missouri use these methods of restraint? Staff, leadership and even the children reported it is because these methods hurt children and don’t work. The Missouri Division of Youth Services culture simply does not permit staff to do anything that hurts children. Staff cannot build meaningful, trusting relationships with young people — which are the centerpiece of the Missouri Model — while also hurting them.
I know Colorado’s youth-corrections leaders were deeply impressed by what they saw in Missouri. They espouse many of Missouri’s philosophies. The Missouri Model provides a plan for implementing the vision of Colorado’s DYC leadership to ensure caring, effective, non-punitive, relationship- based rehabilitative treatment to Colorado’s incarcerated young people.
Now is the time to bring a Missouri Model pilot program to Colorado. It is time to start the process of cultural change that DYC staff and youth so desperately want, need and deserve. I am pleased to report that DYC leadership told me they are committed to a Missouri pilot plan, but they want implementation delayed until July 1, 2018.
Why wait 17 months? We need to start now and move as quickly as possible to implement the Missouri Model. Our kids can’t wait.
Our youth tour guide in Missouri told us: “The kids in Colorado deserve as good as the kids in Missouri.” I couldn’t agree more.
State Rep. Pete Lee is chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
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