Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail, shut
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  1. #1
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    Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail, shut

    Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail, shutting detention centers

    From NaplesNews.com

    NAPLES — The two juveniles now housed in the Naples Jail Center have a daily regimen.

    A wake-up call for breakfast is at 5:30 a.m., lunch at 11:30 a.m., dinner at 4:30 p.m. In between, there are visits from teachers, stops by clergy, video-monitor chats with family. Watching TV is permitted on the jail's two channels. Card games are played.

    Under federal law, the two juveniles — Alex Crain, 15, charged with killing his parents, and Alejandro Perez, 17, charged in the death of a 21-year-old during a drug deal gone bad — are separated from the general population, never seeing or hearing an inmate older than 18. Their most regular interaction comes with deputies, who are required to check on them every 15 minutes.

    "If it's you and somebody else, it's a very lonely position," Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said.

    The jail could get more juveniles, however, after a new state law passed this spring, allowing counties to take minors out of state-run juvenile detention centers and keep them in county jails for up to 21 days. Both Rambosk and Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott are reviewing whether the law can be put into action in their respective counties, though both acknowledge it's no small, or even wanted, change.

    The legislation has pitted some law enforcement officials and child advocates against each other as they balance two interests — the rising cost to taxpayers of detaining juveniles, and how to best rehabilitate the state's youth running afoul of the law.

    Counties pay the state to run juvenile detention centers, where about 1,250 minors, including about 75 to 100 in Southwest Florida, are held on average each day. But in the past five years, the daily cost to county taxpayers of housing a juvenile has jumped by about 60 percent, even as minors spent fewer days in detention.

    "They continued to staff, even if the beds weren't filled," said Sarrah Carroll, Florida Sheriffs Association assistant executive director of operations and recently a lobbyist for the Florida Association of Counties.

    In response, the sheriff's association helped write legislation passed in May that gives counties the authority to move minors charged as juveniles into county jails. Two counties — Marion and Polk — already have made the change.

    The bill has drawn sharp rebuke from child advocates such as Roy Miller, president of the Tallahassee-based Children's Campaign, a juvenile watchdog nonprofit. He argues jail is no place for a juvenile.

    "It sets us back 40 years," Miller said.

    One child, two options

    When juveniles are arrested and face charges, most are released to a parent or community residence, such as a shelter or foster home.

    Some, however, are kept in one of the state's 21 juvenile detention centers. If the judge rules the juvenile a flight risk or potential danger to public safety, the minor can be returned to the detention center for up to 21 days. By that time, a more permanent housing location, such as a privately run boot camp, must be located.

    For those charged as adults with the most violent crimes, such as murder, jail is the most severe option. They can be detained in jail past the 21-day limit for juveniles.

    In Southwest Florida, 20 to 40 juveniles are sent to the county jail each year. More local juveniles, about 750 last fiscal year, are sent to the detention centers after arrest. Collier's detention center, next to the Naples Jail Center, has an operating capacity of 45. Lee's center, next to its Ortiz Road jail, can hold 60.

    While local jails and juvenile detention centers offer similar accommodations — education, health services, visitation — there can be differences in treatment.

    Those detained in juvenile detention centers get face-to-face visits with family, several hours of mental health and life skills help each day, and year-round education. For minors charged as adults in Collier, jail visitation is done through a video monitor and there are fewer therapy sessions.

    "Everything we do is geared around trying to ensure that when they're released to families and communities, they're going to be a little better off," said Rick Bedson, the Department of Juvenile Justice's director of detention services.

    Regardless of whether a juvenile is detained in a state-run center or a county-run jail, the effects can be damaging, juvenile advocates say. An independent report commissioned by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in 2008 said: "The best predictor of future incarceration for juveniles — controlling for seriousness and number of offenses and other variables — is being held in secure detention."

    "The number is pretty astounding," said Gordon Bazemore, a Florida Atlantic University criminal justice professor who studied the effects of detention on juveniles. "If you've been in juvenile detention, the end result is that you're more likely to re-offend."

    As a matter of principle, Rambosk agrees with those juvenile advocates.

    "I don't believe it's good to have a juvenile in an adult facility unless they've been adjudicated or (charged) as an adult," Rambosk said. "If you can kill somebody, then I understand why you need it."

    Counties 'mistreated'

    Counties are turning to the new law because costs rose sharply in recent years.

    The state runs juvenile detention centers and determines how much money is needed to operate them, but counties are responsible for the costs.

    Between fiscal 2006-07 and 2010-11, the per-day cost charged by the state to counties for housing a minor in juvenile detention rose from $184 to $293, a 59 percent increase. Yet during that time, the number of days juveniles spent in state detention centers fell by 46 percent.

    So while juveniles spent fewer days in detention, the costs continued to climb.

    "The counties were definitely mistreated," said Miller, the Children's Campaign president. "In fact, they were treated with callous disregard, and the people responsible were the administrators at the time with the DJJ."

    The effects were felt in both Collier and Lee counties. In fiscal 2006-07 and 2010-11, for example, Collier paid for 8,600 days of juvenile incarceration each year.

    The cost in 2006-07: about $1.58 million. The cost in 2010-11: about $2.53 million.

    In response to the declining demand, four juvenile centers closed and 25 percent of the department's detention staff was cut in the past two years. In recent years, staffing numbers at detention centers were maintained to keep them safe and functional, even if the days that juveniles served dropped, Department of Juvenile Justice officials said.

    "Overall costs to counties for supervising juveniles have decreased by approximately 20 percent in recent years," agency spokesman C.J. Drake said. "We believe ours is a fair system, but if counties don't agree, they now have the option to operate on their own."

    By some estimates, sheriff's offices could house juveniles at half the cost, if not cheaper. Both local sheriff's offices said it's 60 percent cheaper now — about $100 to $120 per day — to house a juvenile in jail, though that daily cost could increase with more minors.

    Despite his misgivings about detaining juveniles in jail, Rambosk said avenues for potential taxpayer savings are on the table.

    "With the change in law and the economic times, we look at any and every opportunity that lessens costs of public safety operations to the county," Rambosk said.

    Standard of care

    Despite the cost-savings, child advocates generally agree that juveniles and jails don't mix.

    Advocates also have expressed concern about the care juveniles would receive in jail. Members of Florida's law enforcement community have created the Florida Model Jail Standards, a statewide guide for how to incarcerate juveniles, but Miller, the Children's Campaign president, called the regulations inadequate.

    He pointed to rules that allow corrections officers to use Tasers and pepper spray on juveniles, and said jail deputies won't have the same level of training for handling youth.

    "The Florida Model Jail Standards should have mirrored the juvenile detention standards that are already in place," Miller said. "There was no need to rewrite these."

    Lawanda Ravoira, director of a Jacksonville-based advocacy center for juvenile girls, said jail officials would be particularly unable to support victims of sexual abuse. Research suggests that 70 percent of girls who enter the juvenile justice system have been victims of emotional, physical or sexual abuse.

    "At best, it's developmentally inappropriate," Ravoira said. "At worst, it increases the likelihood that young girls will be physically and sexually abused in those facilities."

    State law enforcement officials have rebutted some of these arguments, saying that county jails have adequately housed juveniles for decades and meet strict accreditation standards.

    "Just because it's a county facility versus a state juvenile facility, I don't think that alone guarantees the standard of care is better or worse," Scott, the Lee sheriff, said. "The question is who has the ability to deliver and get the kids back on track when they're young versus just warehousing."

    Sheriff's officials from both counties say their corrections standards and staffs would have to change if juveniles were moved to jails.

    "We'd have to look at the building requirements, the training, the quality and assurance stuff, the accreditation stuff," said Collier sheriff's Capt. Beth Richards, adding at least 20 new hires would be needed.

    No easy change

    Rambosk said it's unknown whether a change would even save the county money. He has tasked corrections administrators with researching the viability of the switch.

    "Knowing what I know for what it takes to set things up, I don't think we're going to find a significant amount of cost savings to do that," Rambosk said.

    Collier County has enough open beds to accommodate the roughly 30 juveniles that would move, particularly with the Immokalee Jail Center used sparingly. The jail isn't set up for minors to be immediately moved in, though.

    With its jails near capacity, Lee Sheriff's Office budget director Bill Bergquist said adult inmates would need to be shuffled to make room for juveniles who must be separated from the general population.

    "It might be cheaper per person, but right now if we're at capacity dealing strictly with adults, we're going to need more staff and rearrange the facility structure," he said.

    Neither sheriff's office has a timeline for making a decision on a potential switch. The potential savings must first become known.

    "Somebody has to run it. We know that," Scott said. "Whether the state, county or a private entity does it, the concept can't just disappear. There will be juvenile justice. The question becomes who pays for it."

  2. #2
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    Re: Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail,

    How about posting something we don't know about!!

  3. #3
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    Re: Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail,

    Quote Originally Posted by Big Surprise
    How about posting something we don't know about!!
    Your Sgt is doing your lady. :devil:

  4. #4
    Guest

    Re: Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail,

    Like I said... tell us something we don't know!!

  5. #5
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    Re: Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail,

    When I was 14 I kissed a boy behind the school gym. I didn't like it. So right there and then I knew. No hot dogs for me just pie.

  6. #6
    Guest

    Re: Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail,

    Newshound posts news stories on many boards in Florida. Not just here.

    It must be hard to be sooooo wrong, Mrs. Sour.

  7. #7
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    Re: Collier, Lee sheriffs look at moving juveniles to jail,

    That's a lot of "stuff" capt.

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