Letter: Endless reports not the solution to most problems

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2005 | 8:52 a.m.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Molly Ball's recent article, "Juvenile detention center practices 'deplorable'," deserves extra attention.

She wrote of the need for mental health services for juveniles, and the need for a reduction of "dangerous, punitive and counter-productive methods of control" as stressed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

What are those counter-productive controls? A chair with restraining straps. Pepper spray, which is used not only to break up fights but also on suicidal youths and those who won't go to their rooms. And room confinement, often for days at a time, with no reading material or anything else to occupy their time.

Some recommendations were noted as having already been implemented, as the result of a report on the detention center by the Casey Foundation and the Youth Law Center. Among them were books and magazines being provided to youths confined in their rooms.

Kirby Burgess, the retiring director of the county's juvenile justice services, was quoted as saying, "The report will help us identify what our strengths and weaknesses are and help us come up with solutions."

What strikes me as odd is that it took an outside report to see even one glaringly obvious weakness, the lack of reading material during room confinement. I think this "help us identify and solve" language is the look-good language of politicians. Endless studies followed by endless reports followed by endless committee recommendations, and all followed by -- nothing.

I hope in this case something good does result.

LUCY SAROYAN