For years the Victor Cullen Center, Maryland's high security youth detention facility for boys in Frederick County, has been the problem child of the state's juvenile justice system. The Department of Juvenile Services, which operates the center, recently made some progress toward reducing the number of youthful offenders held there. But conditions remain dismal for many of those who remain, according to a new report by the state's independent Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit. The state must do more to ensure these troubled young people get the kind of treatment they need if it hopes to help them turn their lives around.
The report cited what it called dangerous lapses in security at Victor Cullen that put youth at risk of violence by other youths and a lack of services such as educational programs, mental health counseling and recreational opportunities that are vital to DJS' mission. Unlike the adult criminal justice system, the aim of youth facilities like the Victor Cullen Center is rehabilitation rather than punishment. But DJS can't fulfill that mission if it doesn't focus primarily on the kind of intensive, individualized treatment programs that can put youngsters who run afoul of the law back on track.
This is a continuing problem at all of Maryland's youth detention facilities, including those where security isn't enforced by locked doors and high perimeter fences. But it's most acute at Victor Cullen, which takes in the youth charged with the most serious crimes who are considered the greatest threats to public safety.
The Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit report acknowledges that overall the state has made considerable progress in terms of managing its youth facilities and steering youngsters who don't need to be in a high security environment to less secure forms of detention. That's one reason the youth population at Victor Cullen has declined in recent years. Unfortunately, the state hasn't been nearly as successful in ramping up treatment programs there to adequately meet the needs of youngsters who still require placement in a hardware secure facility.
Many of these young people face tremendous challenges, from poverty, unstable family structures and homelessness to school failure, substance abuse and mental illness. Just locking them up and throwing away the key won't solve their problems or the problems they create in their communities when they eventually leave the facility. If they are ever to become productive citizens they are going to need intensive, one-on-one counseling and other services in a therapeutic setting with trained professional staff.
Yet that's exactly where the state lets them down at Victor Cullen. The Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit charges that staff at the facility focus most of their attention on security issues rather than on treatment, and that relatively few of them approach their work from the point of view of educators or mental health professionals. Nor does it help that that many of the youth there are far from their families and local support networks, which can leave them feeling isolated and depressed.
A robust treatment regimen that allowed youngsters to continue their schooling, have opportunities for recreational activities and regular mental health counseling to help them deal with their problems could have a tremendous impact on their future prospects. But without it, the result is you just have 30 or so young people facing a lot of challenges without any real structure; when that happens the state is just setting up these kids for failure.
State officials say Victor Cullen is making progress, but this isn't the first time there have been complaints about the lack of resources the facility devotes to the kinds of programs that could truly rehabilitate the young people in its care. There's a tremendous need for individualized professional treatment within a therapeutic setting that is well-run, secure and safe for those detained there. When that doesn't happen the state ends up with a poorly run facility where kids are stuck for six months or a year in a badly run adult jail where officials are just trying to keep a lid on things. That's not what Maryland's juvenile justice system is supposed to be, and everyone pays a price for that failure.