Juvenile center frozen in time

By Georgia E. Frye / staff writer
The Meridian Star

MERIDIAN April 16, 2006 01:13 am

— In the early 1970s, Lauderdale County Youth Court Judge H.C. Watkins envisioned a home for juvenile offenders that would provide a nurturing environment and teach minors about the dangers of drugs and crime.
The juvenile detention center that bears his name was one of its kind in Mississippi. It opened in July 1975.
More than 30 years later, the center looks as if it has been frozen in time. The decor, paint, chairs in the waiting room and even the refrigerator in the employee break room have not changed.
For 10 years, at least, grand juries that have inspected the facility have told county supervisors something must be done about the conditions. One grand jury in 2002 likened it to a kennel — and almost everyone agrees much work needs to be done to make the center safer and more functional.
Youth Court Judge Frank Coleman oversees the juvenile center. It is managed by Barbara Vinzant, who declined to be interviewed for this report.
The center houses minors who have committed crimes. The maximum stay is 21 days, and offenders are sometimes as young as 8 years old.

Changes ... for the worse

Coleman said he can think of only a few changes or improvements that have been made at the center since he was elected youth court judge 20 years ago.
Among the changes Coleman has been forced to make are removing wooden bunk beds and the doors on the cells, and replacing them with metal beds and doors made of jail cell bars.
“The kids started tearing the wood beds apart and using the splinters as weapons,” Coleman said. “They would take the light bulbs out of the light fixtures and try to use them as weapons, so I did away with all of it.”
Coleman has done away with a lot of things at the juvenile center, including exercise time for the inmates. He said he did it because the teens either got into fights with each other, or tried to escape, while they were supposed to be exercising.
“I had a basketball court out there but they’ve managed to tear the goals down, and they’ve managed to climb up the walls and get on the roof and jump off,” he said. “So, I had to put up a chain link fence with razor wire around it.”

Crowded conditions

Inside the juvenile center, it is obvious there is not enough space. A counselor is crammed into what used to be the employee break room, two court clerks are crammed into one office surrounded by a mountain of files and paperwork — and three or four inmates sometimes have to share a tiny, two-bed cell.
But what is more startling than the conditions at the juvenile center is that the inmates — mostly teenagers who have allegedly committed felonies like possession and sale of drugs, burglary and assault — are kept inside their cells 24 hours a day.
They receive no exercise, no counseling and no educational instruction, all of which are required by state law.
Coleman said the county has passed on several opportunities to use federal grant money to build a new juvenile center or to expand the current one. He estimated a new center would cost between $4 million and $6 million.
And, Coleman said, the center does not rank high on the county supervisors’ list of priorities.
“We lost a lot of opportunities to be able to fund a new facility because of their failure to take any action,” he said. “My priorities are these kids. I am looking for something to get done and I’ve gotten tired.”

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