A community group is ramping up its opposition efforts to the proposed merger of Ramsey and Hennepin counties’ treatment facilities for delinquent teens.
The state’s two most populated counties are considering combining programs for teens who’ve run into trouble with the law as a way to broaden services offered to residents and address their building needs. Both Ramsey and Hennepin operate juvenile treatment centers that are old, outdated and in need of costly repairs.
Ramsey County’s facility, Boys Totem Town, is in St. Paul. Hennepin County’s equivalent, the Hennepin County Home School, is in Minnetonka. Commissioners will vote next spring on whether to combine programs and build a joint facility. The vote will come after a couple years of study.
Representatives from In Equality delivered 1,000 postcards from residents in both counties to Ramsey County Commissioner Janice Rettman this week. Each one had reportedly checked a box saying they were against the merger.
Rettman, also a critic of the move, which is still under consideration, shared the stack with her colleagues on the Ramsey County Board. She was also asked to give them to Hennepin County commissioners. Members of the local group have also been speaking up at community meetings held on the proposal.
The third of seven public sessions scheduled on the merger took place this past week at Battle Creek Community Recreation Center in St. Paul. The next won’t be until December.
Ramsey County officials said there are public misconceptions about the counties’ process to date and the merger’s goals. They also said some opponents in the group appear to be against any type of secure confinement for delinquent youth.
MODEL CRITICIZED
Members of In Equality maintain that the merger and more specifically the building of a new shared facility goes against industry wisdom that increasingly points to “restorative” and smaller, “community-based” programs to rehabilitate delinquent teens, said Damon Drake, a member.
Drake described In Equality as a group of local “grassroots organizers” concerned with the state’s corrections system, and in particular, Hennepin and Ramsey counties’ approach to dealing with teens.
“The data and all the evidence is showing us that we need to keep kids a lot closer to home and away from the traumatic experiences of being held in these large correctional (facilities),” Drake said.
His group is advocating for consideration of rehabbing houses in neighborhoods across the counties for use as small-scale, community-based treatment spaces.
He pointed to a recent study by Harvard’s Malcom Weiner Center for Social Policy that reportedly advocates for the model.
Laura LaBlanc, another member, accused the counties of putting the “cart before the horse” by focusing on buildings before programs.
Drake used to work as a community corrections aid at Boys Totem Town. LaBlanc, a former social worker, said she worked with teens who resided at the detention center.
CRITICS’ CLAIMS DISPUTED
Ramsey County Commissioner Jim McDonough disputed those claims. He said the counties have undergone a detailed process led by staff and other experts to analyze existing programs and future needs. Only in the most recent phase, he said, has the discussion shifted to buildings.
McDonough represents the ward where Totem Town is located.
He added that Ramsey has successfully shifted toward a more restorative approach with teens, which he said is evidenced in the reduced population that now resides at Totem Town. While the facility can hold upward of 70, the population has hovered at about 30 in recent years. Hennepin County and other juvenile detention centers across the country have seen similar drops.
“(In Equality) has portrayed our plan as a 165 bed adult prison, and it’s not anywhere close to that,” McDonough said. “None of us has ever viewed this as an adult prison. We understand it’s an out-of-home placement for a juvenile who has only lived 14, 15 … years and that the impact of this environment is crucial to how we connect with those kids and their future.”
Still, he said it’s necessary from a public safety perspective to have a monitored facility to send kids who find themselves “deeper in the system,” such as those who have a history of violence.
Rehabbed houses that serve a handful of delinquent teens here and there, he said, likely won’t cut it.
If a joint building is eventually built, McDonough said it needs to be somewhere families and other community members can access so they can be involved in teens’ recoveries.
He added that the juvenile system needs to be better at addressing racial disparities and diverting teens guilty of less serious offenses away from out-of-home placement.
INTENSE EMOTIONS
The discussion to date indicates Ramsey needs to do a better job educating the public about how it’s arrived at this point, McDonough said. Still, he said he expects intense emotions will continue to follow the conversation because it’s about “our kids.”
“There are some people who want to see a (police response) to 10 kids standing on a street corner… and then others who say we should never put a kid in a correctional bed no matter what,” McDonough said. “Somewhere we have to find a place that our staff can feel comfortable, that the judges can feel comfortable, the police officers can feel comfortable and of course the community.”
In Equality members say they will keep pushing to be heard.
“Nobody has more experience than the community about what has been working and what hasn’t, and the community hasn’t been involved in these conversations,” LaBlanc said.
The next community meeting will be Dec. 6 at the Richfield Community Center in Minneapolis.