Kids Behind Bars

When reporters Howard Buskirk and Melinda Gladfelter learned that South Carolina houses mentally handicapped youths, runaways, and truants in the same facilities as juveniles who murder and rape, they decided to take a closer look at the system. Their series of articles prompted two state senators to push for $1.8 million in extra funding for the youth services system this year.

Greenville, S.C. — South Carolina police arrest more than 1,100 youths each month, often for increasingly violent crimes.

But if a judge orders these children into the care of the state Department of Youth Services (DYS), they will be shipped off to institutions that pack two youngsters into each space designed for one.

One national expert who toured the DYS Columbia complex called it the worst he has seen in visits to 12 states. Another said the facilities are as bad “as any I have seen anywhere in the country.”

“What I saw in South Carolina I would have expected to see in 1940 or 1950,” says David Lambert of the Center for Youth Law in San Francisco. “I talked to kids who were terrified — who didn’t believe that their safety was being protected, who couldn’t sleep at night because they were afraid.”

Fourteen months after a lawsuit was filed against the DYS citing “inhumane” treatment at the agency’s long-term institutions, experts agree the state faces a juvenile justice crisis.

How bad is the problem? Consider:

▼ The three long-term institutions at the sprawling DYS campus on Broad River Road in Columbia were filled to 195 percent of capacity last year. On an average day, 584 juveniles crowded dormitories built to hold 299 at the Birchwood, John G. Richards, and Willow Lane institutions.

In 1989, South Carolina had the nation’s most overcrowded youth prisons, according to a survey by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. At that time, the DYS complex was at 154 percent of capacity.

▼ Police made 13,366 juvenile arrests in the state in 1990, a 38 percent increase from 9,655 arrests in 1980. Juvenile arrests for more violent crimes rose even more rapidly.

▼ Statistics show that 56 percent of youths committed to DYS facilities eventually end up in adult prisons. Seventy-two percent of 12- and 13-year-olds are arrested again before they turn 17.

“You take a 14-year-old kid and treat him like a criminal, treat him like dirt, the chances are when he is released at age 16 one can logically expect that he is going to continue to have problems,” says Lambert, with the Center for Youth Law.

DYS Commissioner Rich McLawhorn acknowledges the problem. “If you house children in old, dilapidated buildings, under overcrowded situations, that can only affect their self-esteem,” McLawhom says. “They say, ‘We can’t be worth anything. Otherwise, why would they be treating us like this?’”

▼ Keeping a youth in a maximum-security institution costs $30,500 per year, compared with $1,808 for intensive probation.

▼ Money is so tight that DYS has only one recreation director for all three long-term care facilities, and the staff cannot replace broken television sets or tattered beds and linens.

 

The Lawsuit

Six youths, using only their first names and initials, filed suit in December 1990 against DYS, citing inhumane treatment at the agency’s long-term institutions. The youths complained of overcrowding, inadequate facilities, “harsh and arbitrary discipline,” and a classification system that lumps rapists and murderers with truants.

Before the lawsuit went to court last year, the coalition suing on the part of the six youths brought in experts in youth justice to examine DYS campuses. “Some of the facilities were as bad as any I have seen anywhere in the country,” says Claudia Wright, professor of law at Florida State University.

The DYS facilities are “very, very grim,” Wright says. “The living situation for many of the children was appalling. I even saw one child who had his bed set up in a shower.”

DYS is “a system that was in complete disarray,” says Ira Schwartz, former administrator of the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and now director of the Center for the Study of Youth Policy at the University of Michigan. “I could give you a lot of criticism about the South Carolina system — nobody is proud of it. I hope that the lawsuit will result in major improvements and restructuring of the system.”

The first time DYS Commissioner McLawhorn saw the facilities, he was reminded of “the gulag in the Soviet Union.” His efforts to change that image included requesting a $9.96 million bond to build a new 150-bed unit on the main DYS campus. The bond was recently approved by the state, and building designs are under way.

However, the commissioner disagrees with critics who place the blame solely on DYS, since the agency has limited resources. “Every single witness who testified in federal district court said that we had very difficult circumstances, but we were doing the best that anyone could expect,” McLawhorn says.

DYS has been hit hard by budget cuts, which have forced the agency to freeze 90 staff positions, leaving nearly one in 10 jobs unfilled. Many of the Columbia dormitories have a ratio of up to 20 youths to one juvenile corrections officer.

In a dormitory at Birchwood, the DYS facility for violent offenders, as many as five bunks are placed in rooms built to hold two. Sixteen bunks crowd the common room, which is supposed to be set aside for recreation and watching television.

Some of the largest juvenile crime increases are in violent crimes, with rapes up 75 percent, robberies up 61 percent, and armed assaults up 113 percent during the last decade.

With more youths thrown into the DYS system, state courts, and probation offices, officials say the system is pushed to the breaking point. Statewide, juvenile probation counselors saw an average caseload of 62 youths last year, a 32 percent increase over the previous year. That’s more than twice the caseload of 30 recommended by the American Corrections Association.

When overcrowding and understaffing lead to violence, officials often react with strict discipline. In 1991, DYS officers used a non-toxic tear gas on youths 83 times, usually to stop or prevent fights. Handcuffs and isolation cells are also commonly used to enforce discipline, officials say.

“It’s just crazy to perpetuate a system where you’re locking up kids behind five sets of locked doors,” says Lambert of the Center for Youth Law. “These rundown facilities are extremely depressing. You pack these kids into them and that predictably produces violence, and in order to deal with the violence, they use these Draconian punishment cells.”

 

Community Care

DYS officials concede the current system costs taxpayers too much and is ineffective in stopping repeat crimes. “The lock ’em up and throw ’em away mentality does not work and will not work,” McLawhorn says. He called it a tragedy that “over half of the DYS youths will be in an adult prison by the time they’re 21 years old.”

McLawhorn and other DYS officials point to community-based programs as alternatives to incarcerating juvenile offenders. Such alternatives are not only cheaper, DYS statistics show, but they often have much lower rates of future arrests.

The state has four marine and wilderness institutes that treat non-violent offenders by teaching them respect for life through water sports, hiking, and other outdoor activities. The average cost is $13,000 per youth for an average of six months of treatment, compared with $30,500 annually at DYS institutions. Only 24 percent of the youths sent to the marine institutes are arrested again within a three-year period.

The Family Preservation project in Greenville, one of 10 in the state, has also cut re-arrest rates for serious and violent juvenile offenders. The project sends counselors to the homes of juveniles to work with all family members — offenders, parents, and siblings alike — at a cost of $2,800 per offender.

Family counselor Kristen Rowden remembers awaking at one a.m. to a phone call from a mother hysterical upon finding her 14-year-old son’s bed empty. “I calmed her down,” says Rowden, who had worked with the family for several weeks. “Then I asked her where he might be, and she said, ‘He’s probably at Grandmother’s.’ So she went over there and brought him home.”

Without Rowden’s help, the mother would have called the police, and the boy, who was on probation for assaulting a teacher, might have landed back in the legal system for running away.

“It doesn’t take long for parents to see that this help is so much better than chaos 24 hours a day,” says Rowden. “I’ve just found that the parents have so many problems themselves. I try to work on their self-esteem, helping them get a job, helping them get what they need. When they help themselves, it all just falls into place.”

Experts and DYS officials say such programs can be expanded, but it will take a major financial commitment on the part of the General Assembly before the reforms can be completed. “We’ve looked at innovative ideas and how we can carry our program to the community,” says Karole Jenson, chair of the state DYS board. “But we’re not going to garner the kind of financial support to make any rapid changes.”

“The question is, will the political will allow change to happen?” says Ira Schwartz of the Center for the Study of Youth Policy. “I am encouraged by what I see now and by the enthusiasm of the state officials.

“That doesn’t mean that enthusiasm is going to stay there,” Schwartz adds. “I want to see how this really unfolds.”