With Fewer Kids Held, Colorado To Close Two Juvenile Detention Facilities

The Spring Creek Juvenile detention Facilty in Colorado Springs at the ribbon cutting ceremony and open house in 1998. (Denver Post file photo)
Colorado is closing two youth detention centers after the number of kids being sent to such locked facilities dropped to levels not seen since 1998.
The closures come as the total number of youths in the detention system dropped 32 percent, from 1,480 to 1,000, since 2006. Report by Denver Post.
“That’s a pretty dramatic shift in youth corrections,” said John Gomez, state youth corrections director. “It is good news. There are fewer kids going to detention.”
The reduction in Colorado juvenile detentions follows a national trend, Gomez said.
He credited programs that identified substance abuse, delinquency and familial problems earlier with reducing the number of youths entering the juvenile justice system.
The Division of Youth Corrections will close the 20-bed Sol Vista Youth Services Center in Pueblo and the 24-bed Marvin W. Foote Youth Services Center in Englewood.
The Sol Vista building, which is on the grounds of the Colorado Mental Health Institute, will be used for a substance-abuse program.
Youths now at Sol Vista will be transferred to other detention centers, and those at Marvin W. Foote will go to Mount View Youth Services Center in Jefferson County.
Reggie Bicha, executive director of the Department of Human Services, said the state will try to place employees in vacant department or state positions.
The decrease in the number of kids going to secure youth facilities also happened as the state moved more kids out of locked facilities and into private community-based residential programs.
Youths who primarily have a substance- abuse issue are getting treatment at a community facility instead of going to detention, he said.
“The right kids get the right level of intervention,” he said.
Officials are weighing the risks that kids pose to the community and making decisions whether to send them to detention or treatment based on those assessments, Gomez said.
“We don’t want to over-incarcerate kids,” he said.
Doug Wilson, Colorado public defender, attributed some of the reduction in detentions to a push to reduce the number of juvenile offenders with lesser offenses being sent to locked detention facilities.
“Why would you put truants in there?” he said.
There has been an emphasis on identifying which kids need help when they are very young and addressing their needs before they get deeper into trouble, Gomez said.
Social workers are meeting with juvenile justice professionals to intervene with kids early, he said.
Garcia said closing the juvenile facilities won’t necessarily result in cost savings, however, because the money is being shifted to treatment programs designed to keep kids out of detention.
Faced with a budget crunch that forced him to lay off deputies, El Paso County CO Sheriff Terry Maketa has tapped a new source of revenue: illegal immigrants.
Weld County CO is moving ahead with plans to build its own work-release facility after problems surfaced last year at The Villa, which used to house a similar center, according to the Greeley Tribune.
The New York Times‘ Green Inc blog recently published
This fall, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced 16 new green retrofitting projects, which they estimate will save $3 million in energy costs each year. The state already has solar power fields at two facilities, and plans to build six more in the coming year. A new $176 million juvenile detention facility in Alameda County — home to Berkeley and Oakland — recently became the country’s first jail to receive LEED gold certification. Other green projects — from wind turbines to biomass boilers — have been announced by Departments of Corrections in Virginia, Nevada, and Indiana…
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter announced today that his office, working together with the Department of Corrections, state Sen. Al White and the Joint Budget Committee, is
Community Corrections, Inc. is terminating its day-reporting program in Montrose that day. Carrol Warner, chief probation officer for the Seventh Judicial District, said CCI’s grant funding for the program fell to state budget cuts and its non-residential community corrections component has only five current cases … People sentenced to commcorr must successfully complete a residential phase before they can be transferred to the non-residential program, which includes intensive supervision …
Colorado prison officials blame a stunning increase in violence and lockdowns on mushrooming gang activity and budget cuts that reduced programs to keep inmates out of trouble. Corrections chief Ari Zavaras outlined statistics in a briefing to state lawmakers,
Larimer County officials are waiting for a judge to approve the proposal, which comes as the sheriff’s office budget was slashed by $1.8 million and 18 employees were laid off. Sheriff Jim Alderden said the cuts forced him to close a 32-bed pod because there weren’t enough officers to monitor it. He says sometimes one officer oversees up to 72 inmates. Jail employees say that has made for a tense environment at the jail, as threats to personnel and violence among inmates increases …