ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 30, 1996 TAG: 9612020012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
RECENT troubles at Roanoke city's Juvenile Detention Home at Coyner Springs beg the question: Who's minding the store?
At least since 1991, the city has been warned that the facility - designed for 21 kids; sometimes holding as many as 55 - was a potentially explosive mix of youngsters with emotional and social problems jammed into a facility with operational health and safety hazards.
In 1993, City Council acknowledged it could no longer ignore the problem when it approved a $3 million addition to double the facility's capacity. That funding was part of a bond issue also for expanding the Roanoke City Jail. The new jail annex was completed and opened this year. The juvenile-facility addition is still on the planning board. As city Finance Director Jim Grisso suggests, Coyner Springs' needs ``have not been a priority item.''
If the city hasn't paid the facility's problems enough attention, neither have state officials.
The state, which sets operations standards and shares financial responsibility for local detention ``homes,'' cited Coyner Springs for 33 violations when it conducted a certification audit at the facility in July. But according to people in the know, many of the conditions it found were evident much earlier.
Assuming these problems, including overcrowding, were not camouflaged for the occasion of inspections, why did the state not audit more often or take action in years past to see that the problems were corrected?
Earlier this month, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the investigative arm of the General Assembly, issued a report on the state's juvenile-corrections system. While commending the efforts of Juvenile Justice director Patricia West to upgrade security, reduce overcrowding and toughen punishment, it spotlighted inadequacies in oversight, planning and rehabilitation.
Better management and oversight are needed not only for the state's correctional centers, the equivalent of adult prisons, but also for the locally run detention facilities, the equivalent of jails. Still, whatever the state's failings in this regard, the city of Roanoke still bears most responsibility for Coyner Springs.
That facility, which holds not just the city's juvenile delinquents but also those from surrounding localities, now faces the possibility of decertification. That could mean it would have to be closed, precipitating a regional crisis in the placement of juvenile offenders.
City officials have made some commendable efforts to plan for Coyner Spring's expansion. They have, for instance, put in place some early-intervention and diversion programs, hoping to avoid future overcrowding even after the addition is built.
But kids still are being incarcerated in unacceptable, even hazardous conditions. The city's failure to move more rapidly reflects an unfortunate attitude of lock 'em up and forget 'em.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 linesby CNB