THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505290081
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: DANVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
The state's 17 juvenile detention homes are caught in a Catch-22: If they accept too many children they are violating state regulations; but if they refuse a child, they are in contempt of court.
The Register and Bee of Danville reported Sunday that nearly every juvenile detention home in the state is holding more children than it should.
Tidewater Detention Home, according to an official at the Chesapeake facility, has the worst crowding problem in the state. Last Thursday, 118 children lived in space designed for 48.
``I don't know of any detention home that hasn't violated,'' said Joe Campbell, superintendent of the Chesterfield Detention Home. ``It's a matter of personal judgment - exceed capacity or violate a court order.''
Average population statewide is 120 percent of capacity. In the most crowded homes, that figure jumps to 200 percent.
At the Chesapeake facility, ``We're like a M.A.S.H. unit,'' said assistant director Frank Kern. ``We take whoever comes in. We have no control over it.''
Of the 17 detention home directors, only three said they consistently operate near capacity.
Finding space for the children to sleep isn't the only problem. Crowded detention homes require more staff, food and medical services.
James Melvin, superintendent at the Northern Virginia Detention Home, said no matter what he does, the home comes in over budget. He ends up cutting corners to deal with the crowding.
``When I bring in extra staff, I have to cut the quality of meals,'' he said. ``Pork drops to black beans and rice.''
Some home directors are challenging judges' orders to place children in crowded facilities.
When Pittsylvania County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Judge Coleman Yeatts Jr. ordered a child into the W.W. Moore Jr. Juvenile Detention Home, home superintendent Jimmy Rosenbaum asked Danville City Attorney Bob Saul to review the order.
Saul determined that Yeatts did not have the authority to place the child in W.W. Moore. The detention home is owned and operated by the city and must accept city offenders before any others; Yeatts' court is in the county.
The city and W.W. Moore filed a lawsuit Jan. 26 in Pittsylvania County Circuit Court, seeking to block Yeatts from crowding W.W. Moore with Pittsylvania or Franklin County juvenile offenders. Pre-trial arguments began last week.
W.W. Moore is designed to house 30 children; 38 were there on Thursday.
``Overcrowding won't be alleviated by a lawsuit,'' Rosenbaum said. ``It will allow me, if we win, to stop taking children at a certain number.''
Yeatts, as a judge in a county without a detention home, sees few options for placing the offenders.
Other area detention homes have refused to take the children. Roanoke's detention home ran at nearly double capacity during April of this year. Lynchburg also ran above its capacity.
Crowding in detention homes is not new. Several directors pointed to a burst in juvenile crime in the late 1980s as the beginning of the influx.
Some officials said crowding likely will get worse. Children who were babies in the 1980s are becoming the biggest batch of juvenile offenders courts have seen, and Gov. George F. Allen's administration wants to come down hard on young lawbreakers.
Three detention homes - Fairfax, Northern Virginia and Tidewater - are expanding to deal with the crowding.
Four other homes in the state have tentative plans to expand, and some directors said the state may build as many as three new homes.
But David Marsden, director of the Fairfax Detention Home, said expansion isn't the end of the crowding problem.
``Everybody's expanding,'' he said.
``But it's widening the net - when you get more resources, the judges see more room, so they send more kids to the detention home.'' by CNB