Guns to Roses Program Prompts Scares at D.C. Juvenile Center

The union that represents security staff at the District's juvenile detention center said it wasn't briefed about a therapeutic art program that brought gun parts into the facility, leading to separate scares in the past two months and further straining tense relations between security workers and jail administrators.

Last month, guards at the New Beginnings Youth Center in Laurel found an item that resembled a gun in the gymnasium; this month, an ammunition clip was discovered in a youth's quarters, officials said.

Guns to Roses, the art program, was designed to help teens realize the social impact of violent behavior by teaching them blacksmithing and welding, and then applying those skills to illegal weapons seized by D.C. police. The guns are taken apart before the youths work with them, and then they are melted and molded into art. Speakers who have been victims of gun violence also come and talk to the youths.

The goal is to "transform objects of hate into works of functional beauty and a symbol of change," according to program materials. Three program participants recently went to police headquarters to present D.C. Chief Cathy L. Lanier with a dog sculpture made from old guns.

But union officials said that they weren't told about the program and that it was a safety hazard to bring weapons -- albeit inoperable ones -- into the facility, because guards could have mistaken them for working guns.

"My issue is, from a security standpoint: City officials have said 'this is an anti-prison.' But does that mean that all security measures, when they want to bring in programs that include weapons, go out the window?" said Tasha Williams, chairwoman of the corrections officers union.

David Muhammad, manager of the Committed Youth Services program for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, said James Lester, the agency's deputy superintendent for operations, who supervises the security staff, was involved in planning meetings. Lester heads a safety and security committee that meets monthly, and the program was announced there -- the union is invited to those meetings. There was also a staff and inmate-wide panel on gun violence at which the program details were discussed, and the program was featured in two agency newsletters this year, Muhammad said.

"The union has decided they are opposed to the type of unique, quality programs that we provide for young people," Muhammad said. "Much of our effort is to try to educate and enlighten our staff to understand that . . . purely punitive approaches have been ineffective in juvenile justice."

Muhammad could not say whether Lester spoke with union officials specifically about security concerns pertaining to the art program.

The discovery of the gun parts is the latest example of the tension between security staff and the youth services agency over how best to protect and rehabilitate some of the District's most violent teens. New Beginnings, which replaced Oak Hill, opened in June. The 30-acre, $46 million campus was billed as a place that would help and inspire its 750 juveniles, convicted of such serious crimes as weapons charges and armed robberies, to turn their lives around.

One day after the grand opening, a youth scaled a wall and escaped.

On July 29, guards found an item in the gym that Muhammad said "resembled the shape of a gun. But it was completely the metal skeletal outline of a gun." On Aug. 18, during a routine search of living quarters, guards found the ammunition clip.

Muhammad said the agency is investigating the incidents and has changed procedures for how youths enter and exit the metal shop. But Williams said it was unacceptable for the agency to change its procedures only after two such incidents.

"I don't care if the guns are inoperable. You introduced contraband into a secure facility," Williams said. "The union's concern is: How much ammunition or gun material is still in the facility? Was it ever counted when it was brought into the facility? How do we know that all of it has been found?"