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For years, state corrections and child welfare officials have said they aim to close or dramatically reform Maine’s youth detention facility in favor of less restrictive, community-based care. A recent story by Bangor Daily News reporter Callie Ferguson, resulting from a year-long fellowship with The New York Times, found that this goal remains elusive.
Ferguson’s repo rting highlights the difficulty and slow pace of reforms that can involve mental health, substance use, domestic violence, poverty and other large-scale social problems. That does not excuse slow progress in developing more therapeutic alternatives to the Long Creek Youth Detention Center in South Portland, particularly community-based programs that could keep juveniles closer to home and needed supporters.
While the Maine Department of Corrections, which oversees Long Creek, has spent millions of dollars on community services, much of it through non-governmental agencies, it has been unsuccessful in maintaining smaller, less restrictive alternatives to the youth detention center, which has been faulted by numerous reports and audits for harmful treatment of youths. Two small units were operational for only a short time and were closed, with officials citing staffing issues.
This doesn’t fully capture why the facilities closed, Corrections Commissioner Randall Liberty told the BDN editorial board last week. While the department, like many employers, faces difficulties in hiring and retaining staff, working with youth who have complex and challenging behavioral health diagnosis adds to the challenge for staff. These challenges can be compounded when the Department of Corrections contracts with private agencies to provide the needed care and services for youths that are housed in facilities that the department does not run.
For example, the department opened a small, residential facility for girls in its care. For some time, the facility, which had limited security, housed only one or two girls, which made for an isolating experience, which may have been worse than what the girls could have experienced in the larger group setting at Long Creek, where more services were also available, Liberty said. It was also very expensive for up to nine staff members to be on site for one or two juveniles.
A low security facility for boys, called Unity Place, was run with a community partner agency. It also closed when the agency could no longer appropriately staff the facility.
Liberty said he hopes to have both facilities back open within several months, and that changes in staff training and compensation should help them be more successful this time.
Another community-based facility in central Maine did not come to fruition because of difficulty negotiating a contract that melded social service and corrections needs in one place. Community opposition was also building when the plan was dropped.
It can also be much more expensive to provide services, which include education, clinical treatment and fitness facilities, in the community rather than at Long Creek, Liberty said.
That, however, cannot mean that Long Creek continues to operate as it has, under a cloud of troubling reports and assessments.
The question, Liberty said, is “can we modify Long Creek to make it more normative, more rehabilitative?”
The answer must be yes. Long Creek must be remade to make its current configuration obsolete.
“We should be shrinking our footprint,” he said. “We want the smallest number there” so they can receive the treatment and education services they need.
To be clear progress has been made. The state went from housing more than 100 juveniles at Long Creek decades ago, to about 30 now. Fewer juveniles are being charged with crimes as well. Still, too many children are waiting too long for needed services to help them return to or stay in school and in their homes.
Maine is far from the only state facing these challenges. Vermont, for example, does not have a juvenile detention center. However, it houses some juveniles with adults in its prison system and it frequently asks Maine, and other states, to house juveniles who have been sentenced to detention. Maine does not take these kids.
When a child is sentenced to Long Creek, many other failures have already occurred. These may include failures of the state’s child protective system, schools and behavioral and health care systems, and family supports.
Of the more than 1,500 children under the supervision of the Department of Corrections last year, 111 were detained at some point. This means most of the juveniles received treatment and support in their home communities. Many of those who were detained have complex behavioral health needs. Some are violent. These young Mainers need extensive interventions that the state has struggled to consistently provide.
Ensuring these children get the care and support they need so they can end their detention and return to their communities and families is no doubt challenging, costly and involves numerous agencies. But, as Ferguson’s reporting made clear, finding new and more effective ways of supporting these children is essential, for their future and for the future of Maine.
