First prison for juveniles opens

Aaron Clemens

Thursday, June 1, 2000 | 10:48 a.m.

The first juvenile prisoners arrive at the new Summit View Youth Correctional Center today, and one of the first things they will learn is that they are expected not only to behave, but also to change.

The $14 million, private maximum security facility will emphasize rehabilitation, authorities said at its official opening Wednesday.

Youth Services International, the Sarasota, Fla., company that runs the program, is basing programs at the 96-bed prison on research that shows that jailing juvenile offenders without an attempt to rehabilitate them increases the likelihood they will commit more crimes.

The building on Range Road between Nellis Air Force Base and Interstate 15 is the group's first facility in Nevada and the state's first maximum security youth facility. Youth Services International operates in 32 states and Puerto Rico, housing 4,000 youthful offenders.

The program encompasses a daily regimen of schooling in academics and life skills, as well as substance abuse treatment and group counseling. Parent participation is included in the program.

Summit View will not only save children through rehabilitation, but it will save money by helping young men become productive members of society rather than a burden, Clark County Juvenile Judge Robert Gaston said.

"We haven't had any place in Nevada where we could treat a 14-year-old who committed a serious crime," Gaston said.

The only option before today was to send serious offenders to facilities in Texas, to overcrowded minimum security juvenile facilities in Nevada or to adult prisons, where they learn to become lifetime criminals, he said.

The center's administrator, Woody Hanford, looks forward to the fresh start the facility will offer, not only for the young offenders but also for the jail's staff.

Wherever he's worked before, Hanford said, he would ask why things were done a certain way and would be told that things had always been that way.

"Here we have no traditions," he said. "We'll do things the way they should be done."

All of the youth workers, as he likes to call staff members, have received 160 hours of training that includes behavior management as well as counseling. Many of the staff have bachelor's degrees and three have master's.

"The barbed wire speaks for itself," said youth worker Marsha Wilson, who has 17 years of experience and a bachelor's degree. "They (young offenders) need the therapeutic help Summit View will offer."