Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — Kelly Murr remembers when something as simple as a campfire could help turn a troubled kid around.
Back in 1985, when Murr started working at the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney, Neb., taking the young residents on camping trips and other outings was a way to crack their tough-guy exteriors.
Not every kid responded to treatment, but enough did to make a staff member feel like the work was worth more than a paycheck.
"When a youth comes up, shakes your hand and says, 'Thank you,' that's probably the greatest satisfaction there is," Murr said.
By the time the 53-year-old Gibbon man resigned from the center about a year ago, everything had changed.
More of the kids openly belonged to gangs and seemed more willing to use violence — against each other and staff members. Plus, the center's program has gradually grown less structured, less disciplined and less willing to hold kids accountable for bad behavior, Murr said.
"I wouldn't even think about taking a group out now," he said. "They are disrespectful. They don't want to listen."
The problems confronting the Kearney facility and a companion center for girls in Geneva can't be solved with simple remedies. But members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee last week prioritized a bill that seeks to begin the process of reform.
Although amendments remain to be worked out, committee Chairman Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha predicted the change will be profound.
"It will not be there in 10 years," Ashford said. "If it is, it's going to be nothing like it is now."
The centers house juvenile delinquents from the ages of 12 to 18 who have been declared wards of the state. In recent years, juvenile court judges have ordered about 600 youths to the centers. The average length of stay is five months.
Saving money is one motive for reforming the centers. Nebraska spent about $17 million on them in 2010, almost $60,000 per youth per year at the Geneva center and almost $30,000 at Kearney.
Another criticism is that the centers mix violent kids with nonviolent kids.
Fewer than one-third of juveniles at the centers have committed violent crimes. Most of the 73 percent of the remaining juveniles are admitted because of offenses related to drugs, property crimes and public order offenses, which include violations such as reckless driving, disturbing the peace and forgery.
But no problem causes greater concern than an alarming increase in violence at the center for boys in Kearney. In 2011, youths assaulted other youths 472 times, more than double the number from 2008. The center reported 96 youth-on-staff assaults in 2011, compared with 22 in 2008.
As a possible solution, Ashford's bill originally proposed transferring management of the centers from the State Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Correctional Services. During a public hearing on the bill last month, most who testified were in favor of the switch, including directors of the two departments.
But several Judiciary Committee members, including Omaha Sens. Brenda Council and Steve Lathrop, voiced skepticism that having the Department of Correctional Services take over the youth centers would represent more than a name change. Such a transfer is no longer on the table, Ashford said, although corrections officials will provide advice on improving security.
Sen. Galen Hadley of Kearney said last week he is disappointed that corrections officials won't be taking over the centers. He said reducing assaults and improving safety at the centers needs to be the top priority.
During a visit to the center late last year, Hadley said he and Ashford were in a meeting with administrators when they were called out because of an assault on a staff member.
"He bit him, kicked him, spit on him and got his two-way radio and hit him five times with it," Hadley said. "That happened while we were there."
Murr, the former staff member, said corrections managed the center until the late 1990s, when state officials transferred it to Health and Human Services. He testified in favor of switching back to Correctional Services.
Otherwise, Murr argued for an increase in staffing and a greater investment in security training. He also said the center administrators should establish and enforce serious consequences for assaults by youths.
Jana Peterson, administrator of the Kearney center, has asked lawmakers for funding for 15 more treatment and security staff members. She also said funding for other vacant positions within the Office of Juvenile Services could be used to hire seven additional staff members for the center.
Ashford has said a budget request of $900,000 for staffing has been made. In addition, he said he is looking for $1.5 million to remodel the Kearney center, which currently features outdated, barracks-style quarters where about 30 youths sleep in the same room.
Otherwise, Ashford argued that a key reform will require keeping nonviolent youths from being sent to the centers in the first place. Studies have shown that better outcomes result when youth offenders get rehabilitation services while staying with their families, schools and communities.
"And there's a huge financial benefit to the state," Ashford said. "It's much less costly and there's much less human toll because they're in their homes."
Such community-based treatment also is favored by Voices for Children, an Omaha-based child advocacy organization. The high percentage of nonviolent youths who are placed in the Kearney and Geneva centers represent costly mismanagement of the system, said Sarah Forrest, juvenile justice policy coordinator for the organization.
Sharply reduce the number of kids in the centers and allow the savings to help fund community services, Forrest argued.
"The Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Centers are monopolizing state funding," she said. "We need to be looking at alternatives. It's not just a matter of fixing them."
To be effective, however, community-based treatment needs to provide mental health and substance abuse services to the vast majority of juvenile delinquents who need such services.
Nebraska launched a community-based model in 2009, when the Office of Probation Administration and Health and Human Services joined forces to create a pilot project in Douglas County. Of the 635 youths served by the program so far, 83 percent have remained in their homes, said Corey Steel, juvenile justice specialist with the probation office.
"What we see is very promising," Steel said. "We see the juvenile staying in the home and a higher percentage successfully released from probation."
The pilot program has cost the state about $6 million over three years, Steel said. A cost-benefit analysis of the program currently is under way.
The Legislature earlier this session advanced a bill that will expand the pilot project to the judicial district that includes North Platte and Lexington to see if the community-based approach can be developed in a more rural area.
The early success of the pilot program gives Ashford reason to hope Nebraska might be on the cusp of a better way to deal with juvenile justice.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9587, joe.duggan@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
