Jan
13
Originally published in The Palm Beach Post on Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008.
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The closing of a Pahokee program for juvenile offenders is meant to help bring about a revolution in the way the state of Florida treats arrested teens.
No longer, Department of Juvenile Justice leaders say, will the state send teens to large correctional institutions like Sago Palm Academy, where they are locked in cells originally built for teens convicted as adults.
The last of more than 250 teens at the Pahokee center will likely be transferred out of the program in June, bringing an end to an era when the state put much of its money into expensive facilities ringed with razor wire.
Many in the state’s juvenile justice system, including the leader of the private company that ran the Pahokee program, say they welcome the philosophical change from big institutions to smaller community programs, where they can spend more time working with the teens’ parents. But they question whether state legislators have the political will — and the money — to invest in that those ideals.
“The intention is great,” said Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Blanc. “So many times juveniles get no family therapy or family counseling and go right back into the frying pan.” But locally, he said: “All I see is closings. I don’t see any openings.”
The Department of Juvenile Justice plans to keep 40 beds in Palm Beach County for juveniles sentenced by the courts but has not yet decided where they will be. And until that happens, local teens who are arrested could go even farther from home than Pahokee.
The legislature included a proviso in its recent special session that says the state can no longer maintain institutions with more than 165 teens. Some programs will likely scale back; others like Sago Palm, are scheduled to simply close.
“Back in the early ’90s, we built prisons for kids, we really did,” said Catherine Craig-Myers, who represents the private groups that run juvenile justice programs under state contract as executive director of the Florida Juvenile Justice Association.
Research shows that smaller programs are more effective at preventing kids from committing more crimes, she said. But they are also more expensive, because they don’t have the same economy of scale.
Florida’s juvenile justice programs have long been starved of money, she said, and if legislators cut the budget in the current economic downturn, Craig-Myers said, “none of these good things are going to happen.”
Sago Palm’s facility outside Pahokee was originally built as a program for teens who were sentenced to the adult prison system. But it opened instead as a program for kids charged as juveniles.
The first juvenile program there, called the Pahokee Youth Development Center, began in 1997 with 350 kids and quickly became a nationally-known example of what not to do.
State investigators uncovered chaos, abuse and fights. The for-profit contractor that ran the center, Correctional Services Corp., admitted it held teens beyond the time they were supposed to be released so they could bill the state for more money.
Another for-profit contractor, now called G4S Youth Services LLC, took over the program eight years ago and made dramatic improvements. For the last several years, Sago Palm consistently earned strong marks on state evaluations. A total of 106 students have graduated high school there since the 2004, school district officials said, and the GED passing rate is 90 percent.
Blanc said he didn’t know of any specific problems at the center under G4S, but never had a great deal of hope for the kids he sent to the facility.
“I kind of had a general feeling that if someone went out there, it wasn’t going to be a happy ending,” he said.
Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez, who was one of the first to uncover abuses at the center under the former contractor, said he saw improvement under the new management but is still “delighted” to see the end of an era. If you treat children like criminals, he said, that is how they will act.
“I’ve been looking forward to this moment since the day they announced they were going to start it,” he said.
Gail Browne, President and CEO of G4S Youth Services, said she is sad to see Sago Palm close, but understands the state’s intention.
“I think if a small program is adequately funded, it’s certainly easier to run, and I think you can probably develop better relations with the families if the families live nearby.”
But small programs that don’t have enough money can be even more dangerous than big ones, Browne said. A bad program with few kids can more easily fly under the state’s radar, she said, and there are fewer sets of eyes to discourage mistreatment of kids.
The facility was built as a hybrid between an adult prison and a juvenile program, she said, with both cells and classrooms, razor wire and extra space for recreation. The company used a lot of creativity to convert it into a juvenile program, she said, “but I don’t think it’s an ideal setting.”
Many in Pahokee hope that the building will not become an empty monument to a state’s changing priorities.
Browne said that about 85 percent of the program’s 183 full-time jobs came from Pahokee or other towns around Lake Okeechobee. Most make around $10 or $11 an hour to start, and the total payroll is $7.5 million. The Department of Corrections could take over, preserving jobs in an impoverished town, but no decisions have been made.
Larry Wright, a Pahokee resident who works at the local flower shop, served on the advisory board that brought the program more than a decade ago. A program for juvenile offenders was initially a hard sell to local residents, but after much work and salesmanship from the state, the town embraced the idea.
Today, he said, “we just like having them here. They are good neighbors.”
Wright, who has volunteered at the program, said many parents visited the facility, and were grateful it had given their boys a second chance to avoid adult prison. He questions why nobody in Pahokee was consulted by state legislators or the Department of Juvenile Justice before the decision, when it would cost so many local jobs.
“The governor should be the one to come to Pahokee and just spend a few hours with us and look at our community and understand what we are going through,” Wright said.
State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, said he told Gov. Charlie Crist he feared the closing would create an additional hit to one of the poorest towns in the state.
“I was very concerned that we are going to close a facility has been working well, in a community that depends so much on the jobs it creates — if nothing replaces it,” Aronberg said.
Staff writer Laura Green contributed to this story.
Copyright 2008 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
January 13, 2008 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 2C
LENGTH: 1,111 words
I AM A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SAGO PALM ACADEMY AND I FEEL AS THOUGH THIS WAS VERY SUDDEN AND WITHOUT WARNING. I THINK THAT THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SOME TYPE OF COMPENSATION FOR THE EMPLOYEES THAT HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES TO THIS JOB!!!!
I was concerned that we are going to close Sago Palm Academy where people in Pahokee, Belle Glade , Clewiston, and all surrounds area need a job.I hope you guys bring in some kind of job for those people.
Pahokee on of the poorest city in the state of Florida.
I worked with Tina at Sago Palm and I came in to help with the the change from the BAD YEARS, and never did I see a community of people workso hard to make a program come together. There were alot of tough tears spent on those young men, and alot of tears were shed for the staff we lost along the way. Some were good some meant well but were over whelmed. This was a tough tough job; it was like going to war, and I will miss my comrades. I know deep down that the plan for the future is the right choice but none the less. SAGO PALM should be remembered
BEFORE THE CLOSING OF SAGO PALM I WORKED THERE FOR 7 YEARS AND I ENJOYED EVERY MOMENT OF IT I ENJOYED THE YOUTHS AND ALSO MY CO-WORKERS AND I REALLY DIDN’T LIKE THE IDEA OF THE CLOSING BUT I NO THAT THIS DOES NOT MATTER TO ANYONE AT THIS POINT OF TIME BECAUSE THE CLOSING DID EFFECT ALOT OF PEOPLE IN THIS AREA BUT I TELL YOU WHAT NOTHING CAN NOT HOLD SAGO PALM STAFF DOWN I’LL LIKE TO LET ALL THE SAGO PALM STAFF WORKERS NO THAT THEY WILL BE MISS SO DEARLY AND SAGO PALM WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED.