Columnist Sandra Thompson: Youths at center crammed like sardines

Sandra Thompson

Sunday, March 5, 2000 | 9:18 a.m.

Sandra Thompson is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4025 or through e-mail at thompson@lasvegassun.com.

Clark County's juvenile detention center is bursting at the seams.

Two weeks ago the facility held 232 youths -- more than twice the capacity of 112. Last Wednesday the number fell to 186 but was still above what the facility can comfortably handle.

At night, three or four youths are crammed into a small, cell-like room that's designed for one. The bare room contains a single mattress on a cement slab and a stainless steel urinal and sink. The extra kids sleep on the floor. Those who have certain problems or are considered a danger to others are placed in a room by themselves, further limiting the number of available spaces.

Detention center officials admit that overcrowding leads to an increase in sexual problems and assaults, but say the numbers are not as high as you'd expect. For fiscal year 1998-99, there were nine assaults on staff, 196 fights and 18 suicide attempts. There were 69 incidents where county property was destroyed and 101 youths had to be physically restrained. The average daily population was 191, which is 71 percent over capacity. The average stay was 17 days for boys and 14 days for girls.

"The inn is full and it makes no difference," says Gene Feher, assistant manager of Detention Services for Clark County Family and Youth Services. Kids continue to pour into a facility that is trying to play catch-up from 10 years ago.

Five new detention cottages should be completed by late fall, but that will increase capacity only to 234, which is two less than the number of detainees two weeks ago. So the expanded complex likely will be overcrowded the day it opens.

The detention center figures don't include 92 youths who are on electronic monitoring devices and in-home management programs.

Detention services officials and staff are frustrated.

"There should be common sense used in who you're placing on detention," Feher says. "We have no power to detain or release kids. We're at the mercy of the judicial system."

That's the problem. Not all youths in the detention center are true juvenile delinquents. Some kids are being detained for driving without a license, not having valid car registration, failure to yield, not abiding by the curfew and being a minor in a casino.

"We're a catchall to solve temporary needs," says Albert Crosby, division manager of Detention Services.

The recently stepped-up Truancy Court program has significantly added to the detention center's burden. The court, profiled here in December, sentences habitual truants to the detention center.

The crackdown on truancy was part of the 1997 Legislature's school accountability measures. The prevailing notion was that the threat of or actual detention would be a deterrent to skipping school. While such policies look good on paper, Feher says, little consideration is given to fiscal impact.

As many as 76 youths a day -- 38 percent of the total daily population -- are placed in the detention center by judicial order and don't meet delinquency offender status. There is a legitimate concern about placing these "nondelinquents" with kids who face more serious criminal charges such as prostitution, rape, armed robbery, drive-by shootings or assault.

Ironically, the youths who are sent to detention for skipping classes are not getting schooled in the detention center. The facility's 11 classrooms each can hold 12 youths who are supposed to receive six hours of instruction. Because of the overcrowding, the kids are rotated in and out of the classrooms and receive only two hours of instruction.

Crosby says there aren't enough community and treatment resources to handle youths in need of discipline. More alternatives to detention are needed, especially for minor traffic violations and truancy.

Adds Feher: "Secure detention should be a last resort, not the first resort."