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State Looks To ‘Fill Gap’ In Juvenile Justice

Plans for girls’ facility in Bridgeport encounter controversy

By CHRISTIAN NOLAN

In 2003, the state shut down Long Lane School in Middletown, amid complaints of substandard living conditions and staff neglect at the aging juvenile detention facility.

The boys were sent to a new Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown. And the girls were sent – well, nowhere in particular. Officials did not open a new, full-service facility for troubled young girls, and so they were dispersed to smaller residential programs across the state, some of them privately run.

Now the state once again sees a need for a bigger facility for girls. So even in the midst of a state financial crisis, plans are in the works for a $15 million, 36,000-square-foot complex that could house 24 girls at any one time.

“This is a gap in the system,” said Tammy Sneed, director of girls’ services for the Department of Children and Families. “There’s no other similar type program in the state.”

To date, the focus has been on where the facility might be built. Last month, nearly 250 people packed a public meeting in Bridgeport to oppose plans to put the building in a city neighborhood. But what’s been lost in the NIMBY – or Not In My Backyard – debate is that the vision for the facility is a far cry from the oft-maligned Long Lane.

The proposed building “looks kind of like a school, almost looks country-like, farm-like. We’re very pleased with the preliminary design,” said Sneed.

Appearances aside, DCF officials emphasize that the facility would not be a detention center; girls would not be sent there for long-term punishment but for a limited period of intensive treatment. Mental health services would be emphasized. But the facility – the tentative name is Nob Hill Academy – would also offer educational and substance abuse programs, vocational counseling, and other services for girls and their families.

“I think that there is a continuum of services needed for girls,” said Martha Stone, founder and director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy at the University of Connecticut School of Law. “So much attention gets put on NIMBY and not enough conversation takes place on the content of the programming. That’s what the conversation should really be focusing on.”

Home-Based Services

For now, there are two primary facilities for juvenile girls in Connecticut – Stepping Stone, a 16-bed semi-secure facility in Waterbury, and Touchstone, a non-secure 16-bed facility in Litchfield for girls who are less likely to try to escape.

Sneed said other community- and home-based services have reduced the need for large, restrictive settings. But she said plans by the Judicial Branch to move 16- and 17-year-olds from adult courts to the juvenile system will increase demand somewhat.

She said Bridgeport was ultimately chosen over Meriden, Hamden, New Britain and East Windsor due to its proximity to Route 8 and bus lines, making it easier for the girls’ families to get there. Also, state officials predict that a high percentage of the girls using the facility would be from the Bridgeport area.

As envisioned, the facility would offer two eight-bed secure units for girls who first come into the facility and are judged to be escape risks. An additional eight beds would be set aside for girls preparing to transition back into the community.

While a relatively small number of girls need such a secure setting, Sneed said that scrapping the plans would likely mean those girls would “graduate into the adult [prison] system and you know their chance of success is so limited.”

Stone generally supports the plan, though she thinks 24 beds are beyond what’s needed. She also thinks it would be better to have two smaller facilities in different parts of the state – perhaps one in Bridgeport and one in Hartford.

That, she said, would reduce travel time for the girls’ families. It would also put girls nearer to their home communities and, said Stone, ease their transition back to a normal life. “The transition bed piece of their proposal is good,” she said. “The only problem is they need to be able to live at the facility, go to school, visit family and come back.”

The new facility was on the agenda of the State Bond Commission’s October meeting, but it was pulled off when the public outcry began. Despite continuing pressure from Bridgeport area legislators, state officials say they remain committed to the project. If the commission doesn’t take the matter up by year’s end, the contract to build the facility would have to be renegotiated. •