Violent Youths In D.C. Being Jailed Longer

Agency Chief Addresses Critics Who Link Deaths, Early Release

The most violent youthful offenders are being jailed at Oak Hill more than four times longer than they were three years ago, and those convicted of lesser offenses are being released sooner, the District's top juvenile justice told the D.C. Council yesterday.

Vincent N. Schiraldi, who heads the city's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, was summoned before the council's Committee on Human Services to answer questions raised, mostly in private, by judges, prosecutors and community groups about whether his agency was releasing youths too soon from the Laurel facility. Some of those youths were arrested in other crimes, including homicide, or were killed.

Schiraldi said the number of youths in his care who were killed after being released is decreasing, from eight in 2005 to seven last year and five this year. The deaths are considered significant because they suggest that the youths might have been released too soon.

Schiraldi's statistics apply only to youths who were assigned to his agency's care for extended periods. The post-release death rate is much higher if youths who spent only a few nights at the agency facilities are included, and Schiraldi says they should not be counted in assessing the effectiveness of his policies.

"Even one youth being a victim of homicide is one too many, and DYRS is working hard to prevent these tragedies from occurring in the community," he said. "Our goal is zero youth homicide victims or perpetrators."

Since he arrived to take over juvenile justice in the District nearly three years ago, Schiraldi has attempted to chart a new path: less incarceration, more programs to expose youths to creative outlets and less emphasis on punishment. He has expanded guards' duties to include counseling. He has been trying to convince judges, prosecutors and corrections officers that his policies will make city residents safer and be better for youths in the long run.

But Ronald Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics, a group that works with troubled youths at Oak Hill and throughout the city, said the agency is still feeling its way. Some youths in Schiraldi's care, he said, are playing the system to win release. Others face imminent danger if they are released into the communities they left.

"Our children sometimes become sacrificial lambs in the learning process," he said. "I was locked up five times before I got it. Some children need to go back [to Oak Hill] before they learn."

Moten was among the few at the hearing who directly challenged the agency. National and local experts chided critics who have suggested in recent columns by Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King that Schiraldi is "soft" on criminals.

Georgetown University professor Peter Edelman, a national juvenile justice expert and member of the Youth Rehabilitation Services advisory committee, said critics are wrong.

"They are ignoring history. DYRS and its predecessor were dysfunctional for a long time," he said. Of Schiraldi, he said: "He's moving the agency in the right direction."

D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) said that many of Schiraldi's defenders, who have seen progress at the agency under his tenure, are lawyers and youth advocates who have spent decades fighting his agency and the one that preceded it. But he urged Schiraldi not to become complacent.

"There's a lot of fear out there that youth are out there preying on wonderful citizens and that they're being coddled and released," Wells said. "We don't want an unsafe community out there, or the perception of one."