July 07, 2007|By Gadi Dechter | Gadi Dechter,Sun reporter
It was not the Waldorf teenager's first time behind bars, and his lengthy criminal record - multiple auto thefts, assault, drug charges - persuaded the juvenile courts that he could not be trusted back in the community.
And so Dennis, 17, spent six months dodging gang fights in a state-run juvenile jail in Prince George's County while officials tried to find a reformatory with room for him. Conditions in the jail were "ridiculous, bad, dirty - a lot of fights every day," he said. "I didn't learn anything."
This week, he was among the initial six teenagers admitted to Maryland's first new state-run residential program for juveniles in more than a decade. The medium-security facility for tough juvenile offenders is on the site of the old Victor Cullen Center in the Frederick County hamlet of Sabillasville.
For Dennis, success at the new program will mean earning a high school diploma and returning to Charles County as a law-abiding adult.
For Maryland's dysfunctional juvenile justice system, beset for decades by decrepit facilities, violence, overcrowding and high recidivism rates, the stakes are even higher.
"We're using this facility as our flagship operation for Maryland," said Juvenile Services Secretary Donald W. DeVore. "We've established a new treatment model, we've brought in a nationally recognized director ... and we've really built a first-class facility on the grounds there. We want this to be an example of the new Department of Juvenile Services."
The state has spent millions of dollars renovating the 268-acre Cullen campus, which was shuttered in 2002 amid a management scandal and reports of violence.
The O'Malley administration rushed to launch a new program there after a privately run program in Carroll County shut down in March. The state forced the Bowling Brook Preparatory School to close after a Baltimore teenager died there while being held to the ground by staff members. Six workers were later indicted.
The closure of Bowling Brook, which held up to 170 youths from several states, put additional pressure on Maryland's overburdened juvenile justice system. As of last month, nearly five dozen troubled teens had been in jail for six weeks or longer waiting for openings in rehabilitative programs.
Maryland taxpayers will pay $7 million to $8 million a year to house a maximum of 48 teenage boys at the new Cullen center, officials said. At its peak, the site's previous incarnation housed almost five times that many, 225 boys.
New Cullen residents will be immersed in an intense 13 1/2 -hours-a-day regimen of "positive peer culture" therapy, where youths are expected to influence one another's behavior. This is to happen under the watchful eyes of a 100-member staff and behind a no-climb mesh fence equipped with dozens of cameras and electronic-sensor technology.
That peer-pressure approach was also employed, and reportedly abused, at Bowling Brook. But Victor Cullen's new superintendent, Chris Perkins, 38, who relocated from Montana to launch the program, said rigorous training in safe methods of restraint mandated after Isaiah Simmons' death at Bowling Brook, as well as Cullen's smaller size, will prevent a violent and coercive culture from emerging.
"We will have a culture of transparency," Perkins added, as opposed to the insularity that pervaded Bowling Brook. "When you bring professional [monitors] inside, it's very difficult to hide any type of nefarious programming. Transparency is the key."
Marlana R. Valdez, Maryland's independent juvenile justice monitor, said her investigators will inspect the Cullen center at least twice a month.
Cullen's residents, in addition to participating in group therapy and psychiatric treatment for those with mental health problems, will attend an on-site school, receive vocational training and play sports on a football field overlooking the verdant Catoctin Mountains, where President Bush entertains dignitaries at Camp David.
But the facility's remote location troubles youth advocates. "Sabillasville is not near any high-volume community where youth come from or are likely to return," said Linda Heisner, deputy director of Advocates for Children and Youth.
"One of the aspects of this treatment model is you begin to plan for their discharge from the day they enter, which means involving their own family and community," Heisner said. "You can't do that easily in Sabillasville."
DeVore said that his goal is to eventually serve all youth offenders in their home regions but that reopening the Cullen site was the most practical first step.
To address the concerns of neighbors of the rural facility, the state pledged to accept only "intermediate" level offenders - no murderers, rapists, or sociopaths, said Perkins, the superintendent.
The juveniles services department also established new methods to alert neighbors if a youth escapes, including sirens and an automated telephone alert system, officials said.
