District Cites Gains in Jail's Treatment of Youths

But Critics Say Facility Is Ill-Suited to Deal With Minors as City Weighs Building New Unit

A year after being criticized for the poor conditions under which minors were being held at the D.C. Jail, the city has improved the educational offerings, beefed up training of corrections officers and hired additional case managers and counselors.

An average of 27 minors are held every day, and 173 juveniles were admitted to the jail between May 2005 and October 2007, according to a report to be released today by the departments of Corrections and Youth Rehabilitation Services. Seven of the juveniles had been charged with murder. Roughly half were charged with robbery.

The review of the number of youths who pass through the jail comes as the District grapples with what to do about juvenile crime and how best to punish youthful offenders who, increasingly, are being sent into the adult system. Juvenile justice advocates and city leaders agree that the jail is ill-prepared to deal with minors.

The city is considering options including a new facility for juveniles charged as adults that would cost up to $27.5 million to build and $12 million a year to operate. The other option would use employees from the youth rehabilitation agency, who are trained to work with troubled juveniles, to oversee minors at the jail. That option would cost up to $10 million annually.

The U.S. Senate is considering whether to reauthorize a 1974 act that required juveniles accused of breaking the law to be segregated from adult offenders -- a practice that is not followed in many facilities nationwide. A growing body of research indicates that juveniles housed with adults are more likely to be victimized in jail and to commit more crimes upon release.

"You're dealing with people going through life's stormiest point: adolescence," said Devon Brown, director of the D.C. Department of Corrections. "They're learning the values of an adult correctional model. You don't want that."

Juvenile justice advocates, while pleased with recent changes, still have concerns.

"You can't retrofit a jail for kids," said Liz Ryan of the Campaign for Youth Justice, which leads a national effort to keep youths out of adult facilities. "It points out the flaw in prosecuting kids as adults."

Her viewpoint runs counter to that of U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, who regularly uses a D.C. law that allows him to prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds charged with crimes including murder and rape as adults without seeking a hearing before a judge. In 2005, 15 youths were admitted to the jail. There were 93 admitted in 2006, and 65 through October of 2007, the report states.

"We have some terribly violent 16- and 17-year-olds in the city," Taylor said. "People are not asking the question, 'Why don't you back off?' They're asking, 'What are you doing about this?' "

In February, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) held a town hall meeting with juveniles at the jail, and education emerged as a top priority, particularly for those with lengthy stays. While some were in jail for a single day, others stayed as long as two years, often with little or no schooling. Between 2005 and 2007, the report said that 79 of the 173 juveniles attended school at the jail. This past spring, the jail began offering computer-based instruction and classes to prepare for the GED. Jauhar Abraham, a co-founder of the anti-violence group Peaceoholics, said the changes are positive but depend too much on volunteers.

"You can't hold people accountable if you're not paying them," he said.

For more than a month, he said, he has been working with youths to defuse a situation in which the juveniles were locked down for weeks with limited movement. Abraham said he worries that the youths -- some of whom can't read -- don't understand their rights.

"They're railroading these children," he said. "If they don't have no money and no family, they're getting goaded into taking pleas."

Disposition of cases has long been an issue for juvenile justice advocates. The report said that information about what happened with 32 cases between 2005 and 2007 was unavailable. In the remaining 128 cases, 65 defendants pleaded guilty and two were found guilty by a jury. At least 20 percent of the remaining defendants were found not guilty or had cases that were dismissed.

A round-table discussion on these issues is scheduled this afternoon before the D.C. Council's Committee on Human Services. Brown, who started the first juvenile unit at the Patuxent Institution in Jessup, said critics should hold their fire.

"We're not finished," he said. "But there have been tremendous advances in our operation in the last 2 1/2 years."