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'Hall of Hope' Published 05/07/06 00:00:00 Inside the new Fresno County Juvenile Justice Campus, voices echo off concrete walls in empty rooms the size of basketball courts. Only finishing touches remain before the opening of a new juvenile justice complex on American Avenue. The new hall replaces what The Bee concluded in a 2001 special report was the county's "Hall of Shame," an overcrowded and crumbling juvenile hall at Ventura Avenue and 10th Street. The physical contrast between the two juvenile halls is stark: The new hall is almost five times larger than the old hall and can house nearly twice as many teens. The hodgepodge of rooms in the old hall will be replaced by an organized campus with space for cells, clinics and classrooms. The new hall has enough cells so boys will have their own rooms or share with only one other roommate. Gone will be the days when three or four share a cell, or dozens live together in open dormitories where it's easy to be preyed on. Girls also will live one or two to a cell instead of in open dormitories. The new hall has private offices for counselors to talk with upset youths and additional beds for teens battling substance abuse. In the old hall, counselors have to pull chairs inside closets for private mental-health discussions. The new hall has enough classroom space for a full day of instruction, plus special classrooms for welding or construction trades. At the old hall, there aren't enough rooms for classes so school days are shortened, and students get no vocational training. The new hall has a medical clinic with four examining rooms and two dental suites. Medical staff at the old hall treat teens in a closet-sized examination room crammed with supplies. The new Juvenile Justice Campus is a "hall of hope," says Probation Chief Linda Penner, adding: "I believe in the hope it extends to the community." The public demanded better conditions for jailed youth after The Bee reported the old hall's unsafe, decrepit and barbaric conditions, she says. The $141 million juvenile hall complex is the largest capital project ever undertaken by the county — and the first to use borrowed money. The complex will give the county new potential to rehabilitate youthful offenders instead of just warehousing them, say probation officials and community leaders. "We have a real opportunity in this institution to change the way we work with kids who are in trouble, but it's really going to take a lot of people in the community pulling together to make that happen," says Mitzi Lowe, an associate professor of social work education at California State University, Fresno. Officials believe that with a bigger hall, the county can offer more services than are now available. They hope the difference will be noticeable from early on. Susan Murdock, substance-abuse program manager at the old hall, takes a visitor upstairs to a ward housing 12 boys and 12 girls ordered by the court into substance-abuse counseling. A closet in the unit serves as a private counseling office. Correctional officers and counselors make do with the space available, Murdock says, but "it's hard here to have confidentiality." The biggest space problem: For every boy or girl getting help, Murdock estimates, 20 are turned away from the program. "There has never been space in this institution to offer more beds for the substance-abuse unit," she says. The new Juvenile Justice Campus will allow the county to expand the program to 40 beds, Murdock says. Christopher Nunes, 19, of Kingsburg, graduated from the substance-abuse program in January 2005. He's excited that more will be able to participate in the program at the new hall. "Without a substance-abuse program, they're not getting help for actually what they need to get help for," he says. Caught with methamphetamine in 2004, Nunes says counselors at the hall taught him to set life goals and showed him he could live sober. He's been clean for almost two years, works at a Fowler packinghouse, is going back to school to get his high school diploma and has plans to marry. Academics and jobs skills will have more emphasis at the new hall, which has expanded classrooms and special rooms for vocational classes. The campus includes space to teach welding, building trades, graphics production and an introduction to emergency medical training. At the old hall, classroom space is so limited that the school day is split in half between morning and afternoon sessions. Instruction is shortened by an hour so both sessions get their share of classroom time. The Fresno County Office of Education provides teachers for the court schools offered on the campus. There is no time or room for vocational education. At the Juvenile Justice Campus, school will be a full school day for everyone, says Ken Campbell, administrator of the Fresno County court schools. The addition of vocational classes on the Juvenile Justice Campus provides a unique opportunity, Campbell says: "Some of these kids have possibly never experienced any of these hands-on activities, and it will be interesting to see their reaction." Even though the new complex will be a vast improvement over the old hall, it has the potential to be even better, officials say. But it's going to take community help. The county doesn't have money to spare for gang intervention, victim awareness classes or other new programs. Supervisors even balked at spending money for 49 new workers Penner originally requested, but agreed to add 20 employees for day-to-day operations at the hall. The campus will open with 330 beds — just 15 more than the current hall. But the campus has the potential to expand to a total of 480 beds. Sherilee Lawson, head nurse, is eager to move into the new medical clinic. Her patients will have privacy in the new clinic, which is several times larger than the old medical area. But she worries about staffing. She's yet to be told how many people will work in the clinic when the hall opens. To close the gap, county officials hope the community will step forward and help. One of the hall's community partners is Focus Forward, a nonprofit agency committed to serving jailed youth and children in the foster care system. Lowe, president of the Focus Forward board of directors, says some people are concerned that "we've built this new state-of-the-art facility and there won't be any new programs to serve incarcerated youth." But that's where Focus Forward steps in to find money, she says. Focus Forward offers arts, writing and yoga classes, but is seeking ways to add more programs at the new hall, including pairing university students majoring in social work with juvenile hall youth. Fresno Pacific University also is interested in assigning social work interns to the hall. Focus Forward will host a grand opening gala for the Juvenile Justice Campus May 17. Money raised at the event will help pay for violence prevention and anger management classes, art and music workshops, and tattoo removal, among other services for youth at the hall. Patrick "Pat" Sigala, a longtime Fresno community leader, holds out hope for the new hall. "It looks really nice and modern from the outside and I'm just thinking, 'What's going on inside in terms of trying to help the students find a purpose in life and a reason why they shouldn't be in there?' " Five years ago, Sigala belonged to Justice for Children, a parent-run organization at the time. The parents voiced concerns about conditions for youth at the old hall. Lowe says when the Juvenile Justice Campus opens soon, it will be up to everyone in Fresno County to help ensure the hall becomes a source of pride for the community. Says Lowe: "We will either turn this into a crying shame or a hall of hope." |
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