Visiting the Youth Services Center: A reminder of why youth should never be incarcerated in an adult facility

By Anne-Lise Vray and Francesca Sands

Last week, the CFYJ interns, new CFYJ Policy Director Jeree Thomas, and other summer interns from the juvenile justice field went to visit the Youth Services Center, an 88-bed secure residential facility for detained male and female youth. Our group was welcomed by a well-trained staff that shared with us their experiences working at the facility, and reminded us once again why it is so important for incarcerated youth to serve their time in juvenile facilities rather than adult prisons. The staff told us about the facility’s broad range of programs, activities, and treatments available for the kids, but most importantly, they told us about the kids themselves. They gave us a glimpse of the personal relationship they work every day to build with each child, and explained to us how they learn to respond to each specific, individual need. Some kids are so young that they are still afraid of the dark, and need to sleep with the light on. Some have never left their parents or community/neighborhood before, and are completely lost and scared when they first come in. “They are like our own children,” one of the staff members told us. When our group explained to another staff member that our work mainly consists in advocating  against trying, prosecuting and incarcerating youth under 18 in the adult justice system, she thanked us and encouraged us to continue, because “it is so important for the kids,” she said.

The facility focuses its efforts on rehabilitation, and not only do staff provide schooling for children in their absence at their regular schools, but they also teach the kids how to positively contribute to society and fulfill their duties as community members. This is achieved by designing age-appropriate programming that includes activities as serious as short-term goal setting and journaling to as fun as having spa days with the teenage girls. Children respond positively to such attention and care, and will internalize the lessons implicit in such practices. A child, whose experience in society is so limited, will certainly not receive such individualized attention and age-appropriate treatment in an adult facility. Adult facilities don’t allocate any time, money, or thought to child- or adolescent-specific needs. In such facilities, the fragile stage unique to young people is disregarded, leaving kids floundering in a world for which they are neither developmentally prepared nor mentally equipped to handle. As a humanitarian, civil rights, and public safety concern, it is crucial to treat all prisoners as human beings. But it is equally as dire to treat incarcerated kids appropriately as kids.