John Braun: Find more space for juvenile offenders, but stop putting them with adults
Monday, December 2, 2024
A lot can be said about the governor’s proposal to address overcrowding at Green Hill School in Chehalis by repurposing a vacant wing of the state prison near Aberdeen.
Here’s the obvious reaction: It’s about time.
Gov. Jay Inslee has been incredibly slow to respond to the issues at Green Hill. It’s been almost 10 months since I wrote to him about addressing not only the severe overcrowding but also the riots, drug overdoses, contraband smuggling and crimes committed by employees on the premises.
These issues had been raised by local law enforcement, courageous Green Hill employees and good work by some in the news media.
As a legislative leader, and because the residents and staff at Green Hill are my constituents, I took these concerns straight to the governor. In early February, I told him it’s not right for children who are put in the state’s care by our judicial system to be put in such positions.
The governor’s Nov. 25 announcement also could be labeled as too little, too late.
Green Hill’s safe operating capacity is 180 residents. According to news reports, the population has been over 200 since February and hit 245 in late spring.
The Inslee proposal would open no more than 48 beds at the Stafford Creek Correctional Center. That wouldn’t handle another population spike like the one Green Hill had in May.
As for too late — I realize the Department of Children, Youth and Families has more on its plate than managing the state’s juvenile-rehabilitation facilities.
Still, if Inslee and the DCYF director had been on top of things and given this situation the priority it deserved, the Stafford Creek proposal could have been put on the table for a broader discussion many months ago.
Instead, they wasted valuable time with illegal and unworkable responses.
In early July, DCYF abruptly announced that Green Hill and its counterpart in King County, Echo Glen Children’s Center, would stop taking juveniles sentenced by county courts. Days later the agency just as abruptly shuttled 43 Green Hill residents off to adult prisons.
Both of those moves were quickly reversed after the courts got involved.
By mid-August, Inslee and his administration had apparently run out of poorly conceived strategies. He called on Corrections to step in and help at Green Hill.
Also, within weeks, the idea of opening space for youth at the Stafford Creek adult prison surfaced publicly.
Instead of thoughtfully responding to the concerns I expressed in February, Inslee chose to fire back with the suggestion that I was uninformed.
It was done with the same arrogance the people of Washington have seen when he’s been questioned about other decisions, like his authoritarian response to the pandemic.
It’s clear now that either Inslee was the one who was uninformed or he was just determined to keep covering up the severity of the situation at Green Hill.
Another thing about Inslee’s proposal is his disappointing choice to keep Republicans in the dark. Green Hill and Stafford Creek are in legislative districts served by Republicans, yet we were all kept away from Inslee’s Nov. 25 press conference.
If his proposal becomes reality, it will affect people who are or will be our constituents. Also, as legislators, we will be asked to approve funding requests related to more space for youths.
Involving local legislators would have been, and still is, the right thing to do. Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson has an opportunity to succeed where Inslee has failed.
On the surface, it makes some sense for DCYF to lease unused space at Stafford Creek. That prison is one of the state’s newest, opening less than 25 years ago. Also, having juveniles housed on the same grounds as adults should allow for more efficiency with necessities like campus security and food service.
Still, people in Southwest Washington might shake their heads, remembering how the state walked away from hundreds of youth-detention beds at the former Maple Lane School north of Centralia and the Naselle Youth Camp in southern Pacific County.
Maple Lane’s time as a juvenile facility ended abruptly in 2011 because legislators and Inslee’s predecessor chose to divert resources to Green Hill at a time when the state budget was in rough shape.
Naselle had its last resident leave in September 2022, following another budget decision. It was not helped by its remote location and what a report to legislators called “efforts by the governor and DCYF to expand options for youth offenders other than incarceration.”
The overcrowding at Green Hill suggests efforts to find options failed, and it might have been wise to keep Naselle open after all.
At his news conference, Inslee stated the obvious: His Stafford Creek proposal can’t solve the entire long-term problem of overcrowding at juvenile facilities.
But then the Inslee arrogance made another appearance. In response to a reporter, he denied having regrets about signing the bills passed by majority Democrats that enabled what’s called JR-to-25.
Those laws twist the definition of juvenile rehabilitation by foolishly allowing the placement of people up to 25 years of age in the same spaces as actual juveniles.
Instead, Inslee blamed the situation at Green Hill on an “avalanche of new juvenile offenders,” which he then tied to what Democrats love to call “gun violence.”
I know people get tired of partisanship, but it apparently never occurs to Inslee that the policy decisions he and his fellow Democratic lawmakers have made are at the root of the 60% increase in the number of youth being sent up to state-run detention facilities.
Take the law created in 2023 by House Bill 1324, which passed on purely partisan votes in the House and Senate. It basically says any crimes an adult committed as a juvenile no longer count if that adult is being sentenced for all but the most serious murder and sex offenses.
With this deterrent gone, it’s no wonder youth offenses are on the rise, and adults also seem to be enlisting more children in committing crimes. As an example, Seattle police recently arrested an 11-year-old — that’s not a typo — along with a 19-year-old and 21-year-old. The three are suspected of committing a string of convenience-store robberies.
As for guns, Inslee and Democratic leaders repeatedly ignored Republican legislation to create another deterrent by increasing penalties for those convicted of stealing firearms or using a stolen firearm when committing crimes.
Ferguson claimed as a candidate that he’s serious about restoring public safety. If so, we’ll introduce our bills again, and he can help get them passed.
Also, Ferguson will get to hire a new DCYF director. His decision will hopefully be informed by the knowledge of how Inslee’s choice had performed.
But let’s get back to Green Hill. Even though Inslee referred to the teenaged residents as “young kids,” he continued to support the flawed ideology that puts them in the same spaces with chronological adults.
Countless Washingtonians died before legislators admitted the social experiment that decriminalized hard drugs was a mistake. I’m not aware that the JR-to-25 experiment has literally ended any lives, but it has caused serious harm to many while impeding the rehabilitation that is supposed to be happening.
Senate Republicans have three priorities: public safety, affordability and improving the lives of Washington’s children. The situation with Green Hill and juvenile rehabilitation in general checks each of those boxes.
The young people whose choices have placed them into the juvenile-rehabilitation system deserve a second chance to get their lives on a productive path. They don’t deserve to be victimized by another failed social experiment.
No matter what happens with Inslee’s proposal to open more space and relieve the overcrowding at Green Hill, revisiting the JR-to-25 policy should be a top priority for the new year’s legislative session. It’s how we make our state better.
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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.