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Show Continued on page 3 Youth in trouble Defining youth Imw offenders By Steve Christensen Express Assistant Editor Editor's Note: This is the third and last in a series dealing with juvenile detention and shelter care. This article arti-cle will emphasize the procedues and processes for children taken to the Uintah Basin Youth Center for juvenile detention. The telephone rings and a man answers. A policeman on the other end tells the man his son has been picked up for consumption of alcohol. He is being held in detention at the Uintah Basin Youth Center. He is safe, and he can see him in the morning. The man hangs up the telephone and sits down on the bed, staring blankly across the room. The boy is certainly not a cirminal, but he is in jail, juvenile detention. Many of the juveniles brought to the youth center are not criminals, at least not yet. Some will never return, others will return again, and perhaps again after that, and then to permanent detention, or perhaps even prison. The purpose of youth corrections is to keep as many juveniles as possible out of prison. It all begins at the youth center. The juvenile is brought to the youth center by a law enforcement of ficer, showered, booked, all personal belongings are taken from him, and he is locked in a security cell. There is no doorknob on the inside of the room. For a juvenile never before in trouble trou-ble with the law, this can be quite an awakening experience. The room he is placed in can be monitored by a video camera at all times. He is monitored for his own safety. Unfortunately, not all juveniles who are brought here come for the first time. And some are already criminals. They are treated the same, except they are not only locked up for their own safety and for what they have done, but also for the safety of others. From the Youth Corrections Mission Statement, secure facilities "...Provide "...Pro-vide humane, secure and therapeutic confinement to a youth who has demonstrated that heshe presents a danger to the community..." The Uintah Basin Youth Center is one of three such facilities in rural areas in Utah. The other two were built simultaneously with the Vernal facility. They were built to comply with the Division of Youth Corrections Mission Statement to "...Provide a diversity of community-based and secure correctional programs which, wherever possible and appropriate, shall be in close proximity to the youth's community and family..." A juvenile brought to detention has the right to a hearing within 48 hours. Much the same as in shelter care, the hearing is held to determine if there is reason to bring the juvenile here in the first place, and if there is reason to continue to detain him. Should it be determined the juvenile is no danger to himself, to public property, pro-perty, or to others, it is possible that he may be released in the custody of his parents. He may then be required to appear in Juvenile Court, which is every two weeks in Vernal. If determined there is reason the juvenile cannot be trusted, or that he poses a danger to himself or others, he may be detained until the next time court is held. The Juvenile Judge then makes more permanent arrangements. ar-rangements. In either case the youth center is meant only to detain the juvenile until more permanent arrangements ar-rangements can be made. Juveniles are brought to the youth center for crimes ranging from consumption con-sumption of alcohol to first degree felonies. Life in detention is quiet and boring. While some of the youths brought in- are loud and abusive at first, Bob Allen, house parent of the facility, says he has had no one buck at the system once the rules have been set down. Mike Smuin, who spells Bob at night, says they give the juveniles no reason to buck the system. Mike says they are not judges at the youth center, and make it clear to the juveniles they will not judge them, either legally or morally. The only thing they will do is hold them and take care of them until the juvenile judge decides what the next step will be. For youths who obey the rules and pose no danger, they are allowed to congregate in a day room, where they may watch television, read, or even play games. Detention is not meant to be punishment. The main objective of youth corrections is to keep the juveniles out of incarceration. The worst thing that could happen at this point is for juveniles to feel they are being punished, even before they have been convicted of something. Punishment Punish-ment comes somewhere else, at some other time, as determined by the court. The youth center is meant only to detain the juvenile, in the most pleasant plea-sant circumstances possible for the shortest period of time. Continued on page 2 Detention... Continued from page 1 Even if they should want to, law prohibits pro-hibits coordinators of the facility to in any way punish the juveniles. The only on-ly recourse they have for improper behavior is to lock them in their rooms. The rooms are totally secure, with all the precautions taken to assure the juveniles safety. This means especially from themselves. Three of the four individual rooms are carpeted. Everything except the mattress mat-tress on the bed is bolted down. The windows are triple pane and bullet proof. There are two heavy bars across each window in hopes of making mak-ing the room look less like a jail. But even so, the room is a jail. In the fourth room there is no carpet. This is the room where intoxicated juveniles are brought. The tile floor is for obvious reasons. The video camera in this room is encased in a metal box which slopes, so nothing can be secured to it. Every precaution has been taken to keep the youth safe while he is in a distressed frame of mind. While everything is done to make the juvenile offender feel at ease, there is one fact all who are brought here must face, they cannot get up and walk out. After a day or two of hearing the key turning in the lock behind them, most juveniles realize this is not a place they want to spend any appreciable amount of time. To the juvenile judge, the court referee, the division of youth corrections, and to the administration of the youth center, they are in hopes this experience will be the only time they see any one Juvenile under these circumstances. Unfortunately, this is to often not the case. |
