Juvenile justice goes from maximum to miminum security with no middle

By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer

May 08, 2008 11:15 pm

— Juvenile services has no “in-between” place to house juveniles — it’s either maximum security with rapists and murderers or a shelter they can walk out of, officials said.
“That is one of the things we’re talking to the legislature about — providing medium-security type facilities,” said Mark Winters, executive director of Muskogee County Council Of Youth Services.
McCoys operates a juvenile shelter that is not a lockdown facility and a maximum security, juvenile detention facility in Muskogee.
There needs to be someplace juveniles can be sent that is a lockdown detention facility but not where they will be associating with murderers and rapists, Winters said.
That may have been the case for three juveniles who injured a McCoys employee before they walked away from the shelter in Muskogee this week, Winters said.
“People have been talking about it (medium-security juvenile facility) for years, but I’ve never heard of anything coming of it,” said Ron Copeland, district supervisor for Juvenile Services. The office is under the state Office of Juvenile Affairs.
The state prison system provides minimum, medium and maximum security facilities for adults, Winters said.
Oklahoma has 301 maximum security juvenile beds in regional centers across the state but needs more, Copeland said.
McCoys is the least restrictive place area juveniles can be admitted to and is not a detention facility, Winters said.
There are 33 such regional shelters across the state, said Shawn Black, executive director of the Oklahoma Association of Youth Services.
Those 33 shelters have 305 beds, Copeland said.
Referrals to the nine-bed shelter in Muskogee are made from police, Department of Human Service workers, judges or parents, Winters said.
On average, the facility usually has six or seven children at one time, he said. McCoys served 289 juveniles in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, Winters said.
There have been 219 juveniles served since July 1, he said.
The public has a misconception about McCoys, he said.
“McCoys is not the place where ‘bad’ kids go,” Winters said. “Some of the kids here were abused by parents.”
The McCoys employee injured when three juvenile girls knocked her down before leaving the shelter is going to be all right, Winters said Thursday.
The employee’s leg was twisted under her, she had knots on her head but did not have a concussion, he said.
All the girls would have had to have done is open a window and leave, Winters said. One had gotten angry that the employee did not give her a Tylenol, police said.
The outcome of a police investigation sent to county prosecutors won’t be made public because the case involves juveniles.
The separate, 10-bed regional juvenile detention facility in Muskogee is a maximum security facility. Anyone placed there may be in the company of murderers and rapists, Winters said.
About 50 percent of those placed in that facility are from Muskogee County. Others placed there are from Cherokee, Wagoner, Okmulgee and McIntosh counties, Winters said.

Reach Donna Hales at 684-2923 or dhales@muskogeephoenix.com.

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