Pubdate: 1 Mar 1999
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 1999 Mercury Center
Contact:  http://www.sjmercury.com/
Author: Renee Koury

JUVENILE JAIL SOUGHT

Proposed facility to ease crowding

Alameda County is proposing to build the state's second-largest jail for
kids to relieve crowding at its juvenile hall, despite some concerns that
too many children will end up locked away.

The board of supervisors is expected to go after funding next month for the
540-bed, $250 million complex, which would nearly double current capacity
and allow for hundreds more beds if needed. Targeted to open in 2003, the
hall would be second in size only to Los Angeles' facilities, which hold
about 1,500 children.

Alameda County probation officials say the expansion is desperately needed
because the county's 1950s-era hall in the San Leandro hills is overcrowded
and not up to seismic code, and a rise in juvenile crime is predicted over
the next several years.

Supporters such as Supervisor Scott Haggerty also favor the tough-on-crime
approach.

``Let's face it,'' he said. ``The juvenile population is becoming more
dangerous. We have to have the facilities to deal with that growing
population. I think it's important that we try to set our kids on the right
path the first time. When I went to school, we solved problems with our
fists, and now they solve them with guns and knives and we have to tell
them it's not OK.''

But youth advocates say such funding should go instead toward steering boys
and girls away from crime. Dan Macallair, associate director of the Center
on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, said that if the county
builds more beds, more bad kids will come.

``This is beyond belief,'' said Macallair, who likened Alameda County's
proposal to a sort of ``field of bad dreams.''

``If you build 500 beds, then you'll find 500 kids to fill them up. It's
bureaucratic convenience. If the beds are there, it becomes very easy to
just dump the kids there, he said. The kids are just cycled back onto the
streets, and they get into the same old problems. The public is being sold
a bill of goods.''

Despite a decline in crime -- juvenile crime in Alameda County went down 35
percent from 1990 to 1997 -- the juvenile hall has reported overcrowding
every year since 1992.

Officials say the jail is full in part because kids are staying longer. The
hall is intended only as a holding facility while they await court
hearings, but with more serious offenses to deal with, court takes longer.
The average stay has gone up from a couple of days to 23 days. One boy
stayed two years while awaiting his murder trial.

There are also few places where kids can be sent to serve out sentences,
such as group homes and ranches, according to Supervisor Gail Steele. And
on one recent day, 99 kids in juvenile hall were awaiting placement in
foster homes.

With a capacity of 299, the hall averages about 340 inmates per night. Many
youngsters sleep on plastic bunks in makeshift dormitories in the day
rooms, or double up in cells meant for one. Visiting rooms sometimes double
as X-ray labs or dining rooms, and medical and counseling services are
scattered.

The crowding violates state codes, but state inspectors concede the county
is doing all it can to make do.

``It's getting unbearable in here,'' said juvenile hall Director James
Ladner during a recent tour. ``When you take a place that's this crowded
and you put in a lot of kids together who don't particularly like each
other, you can just imagine what it's like.''

And the situation is likely to get worse. The number of kids brought into
juvenile hall will gradually climb from 9,800 during 1997 to a projected
12,000 to 13,000 kids during 2007, according to a consultant's report. Much
of the increase will stem from more girls getting into trouble with the
law, according to the report by Rosser International consultants of
Georgia. The report predicts as many as 4,100 girl inmates by 2007.

The hall also does not meet earthquake standards and it is surrounded by
two prongs of the Hayward fault, said construction manager Lou Shikany. The
new complex will be built near the existing hall, but with a stout design
to resist quakes.

Overcrowding is common at juvenile halls throughout the state. However,
some Bay Area counties are handling the situation without expansion.

San Mateo County has rejected proposals for a larger juvenile hall in favor
of a ``youth services campus,'' where troubled teens will get help for drug
addiction, sexual abuse and emotional problems. Santa Clara and San
46rancisco counties are both trying to avoid expansion and funnel
troublesome kids into remedial programs instead.

Santa Clara puts many of its juvenile offenders on electronic ankle
bracelets, which sound an alarm if they leave a prescribed area. Santa
Clara also has established neighborhood accountability boards in which
first-time offenders go before their neighbors, who decide on a punishment
such as restitution. And the county steers offenders into programs that
address problems such as drug addiction or learning disabilities.

Such programs are a better use for the kind of money -- about $38,000 a
child in Alameda County -- spent to provide guards, counselors, staffing
and services at juvenile halls, Macallair said. Staffing for the new hall
alone could exceed $20 million a year.

``Take the $145 a day it takes to warehouse a kid in juvenile hall and buy
comprehensive services for three kids,'' he said. ``Hire someone from the
community to work with them full time. Put food in the kid's cupboard.
These kids come from situations that most people don't comprehend.''

The arguments hit home with many local officials, including Supervisor
Steele, who has fought for years for more programs to help disadvantaged
children. Still, she reluctantly supports the new juvenile hall plan,
saying the crowding situation is so dire and the facility so outdated that
the county can no longer wait for social programs to make a dent in crime.

``What (Macallair) is saying is right, and I agree,'' Steele said. ``But we
cannot continue in that facility the way it is. It's inhumane. Our (county)
population is 1.3 million and growing. We have many depressed areas and a
failed educational system. And many of these kids have done some bad stuff.
What are we supposed to do? If we're going to build a building, we have to
build it to last 40 years, not make it too small.'' 
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