Tension mounted between juvenile judges and detention officials when the Legislature in October took away judges' power to promptly slap troubled teens in detention.
Faced with crowded detention facilities and a civil rights suit over that overcrowding, lawmakers decided that detention officials - not judges - should have the final say on which teens are thrown into short-term detention for several days or weeks.Under the new law, juvenile judges can no longer slap a teenager in short-term detention for failing to obey a court order. Two things haven't changed: Teenagers caught committing a serious crime by police can still be thrown in detention, and judges still decide which teens spend months in "secure facilities" - jails for juveniles.
Judges say the new law has left the public in danger and heightened some teens' defiance toward authority.
"The kids are rapidly finding out that I can't send them to detention. They seem to think they can get away with a whole lot more than they could before," said 2nd District Juvenile Judge Diane Wilkins.
Detention officials say the new law means the right kids end up in detention. Kids are no longer locked up for disobeying picayune court orders such as "obey your parents" or "be home by 10 p.m. every night," they say.
The difference is this:
Before the special session, judges could sentence youths to up to 30 days in detention for committing a crime. The judges often stayed the sentence, putting the youngster on probation instead. As part of the probation, the judges issued a court order requiring the teenager to do certain things, such as attend school every day, obey his parents and be home by a certain hour.
If the teen disobeyed the court order, the judges often lifted the stay and ordered the youngster to immediately begin serving his or her sentence.
Judges can no longer do that. Instead, the judge can only order the youngster to report to detention officials. The detention officials now decide whether the teen should spend several days in detention or try some other alternative.
Detention officials point to David's story as the reason for the new law. David's first and only offense was shooting a 5-year-old kid with a BB gun. David (not his real name) was 16 at the time.
A juvenile judge ordered David to pay $236.55 in restitution. The sum covered the child's medical bill, according to David's juvenile record.
When David didn't get the restitution paid on schedule, the judge fined him $200.
David now had to pay $436.55. He got all but $191.55 paid off by the date the judge assigned him. Angry that David hadn't paid off the rest, the judge found him in contempt and threw him in MOWEDA Youth Home in Roy for 10 days, according to David's record.
A questionnaire filled out by David at MOWEDA captures the poignancy of the situation. Asked to identify his greatest success, David wrote in block letters: "The only success I had was to get most of my fine paid off."
Asked how he could have avoided detention, he wrote, "I spent some of the money I should have put toward my fine."
That boy should never have been sent to detention, said Patrick Lambert, director of MOWEDA. Under the new law, he wouldn't be.
But judges say the new law is contrary to Gov. Mike Leavitt's goal of teaching youngsters to respect authority.
"A kid can come into my court, yell all kinds of names about me and refuse to do what he's told and all I can say is, `I'll send you to Youth Corrections and you can work it out with them,' " said 2nd District Juvenile Judge Kent Bachman.
"That doesn't make sense. If we are trying to get tough on the violence in society, why deprive us of the authority to restrain kids?"
The new law means little to the average citizen, but it has sparked a spate of bureaucratic spats between judges and detention officials. The two sides have warred on television, in the newspapers and in speeches to community groups.
Some of the spats:
- A Cache County program for troubled teens that usually teems with up to two dozen teenagers is empty today. The staff says it's empty because the only juvenile judge in the valley - 2nd District Juvenile Judge David Sorenson - has refused to refer teens to the program since the special session.
The program - called a diversion program - was created as an alternative to spending time in detention, Sorenson said. Since he can't sentence kids to detention, he can't legally send them to diversion either, Sorenson explained.
Instead, Sorenson is ordering kids to work with probation officers.
"There is no reason to have a program to divert them from something you can't do anyway," Sorenson said.
Besides, under the new law, detention officials can divert kids without his order.
But Cache detention officials privately say Sorenson is furious over his recent loss of authority and is boycotting the diversion program to vent his anger.
Sorenson acknowledges being upset over the law but says the accusation is untrue.
- Fifth District Juvenile Judge Scott N. Johansen cited the director of the Cache Detention Center for contempt after the director refused to incarcerate a teenage girl for using her foster parents' telephone charge card.
Johansen sentenced the girl to eight days in detention at the end of October. Director Clint Farmer refused to incarcerate the girl because Johansen ordered detention after the new law had passed.
Instead, Farmer required the girl to pay her foster parents for the phone charges and do community service.
But Johansen said he was really lifting the stay on a sentence imposed before the law was passed, so he still had the power to order the girl into detention, according to court records.
When Farmer appeared before Johansen, the judge told Farmer he didn't want an explanation, he wanted a plea of guilty or not guilty. The judge told Farmer that if he pleaded guilty to contempt, he could go to jail, Farmer said.
Farmer pleaded not guilty. The matter is scheduled for trial in January, he said.
- Youth Corrections officials last month scuttled a tentative deal with 2nd District juvenile judges that would give judges back some of their power after one 2nd District judge slammed the new law in a newspaper article.
Second District Judge Stephen A. Van Dyke was quoted in the Standard Examiner as saying the new law means detention officials unfamiliar with cases with make decisions about kids instead of the judges who have pored over the kids' files. Van Dyke was also quoted as saying the new law means kids can't be sentenced to detention for raping other kids.
Jeffrey W. McBride, regional director of Youth Corrections, read the article, then fired a letter off to Van Dyke saying a proposed deal with 2nd District judges was off. "Retaliatory and sarcastic remarks have been made in the media and in court," McBride said in his letter. "It appears that support for successful programs has been withdrawn, facts distorted and a general attitude of hostility has prevailed."
The hostility exists on both sides, Van Dyke said in a reply letter.
Van Dyke says he was misquoted in the article and regrets strained relations with McBride and MOWEDA staff. McBride says Van Dyke has also criticized the law on educational television and in an address before law enforcement officials.
Relations between Van Dyke and MOWEDA officials are so strained that when a MOWEDA staff member recently asked Van Dyke which car in the MOWEDA parking lot was his, Van Dyke quipped to a reporter "the staff probably wants to know which car to vandalize."
Van Dyke says both sides are working to ease the tension.
The real problem is a philosophical battle between Utahns and their politicians, he said.
The public wants problem kids disciplined promptly and sharply. If the kids are dangerous, they want them off the streets, Van Dyke says. But lawmakers and the governor don't want to spend millions of dollars building the scores of detention centers and youth jails needed to achieve that goal.
So frustrated judges try to discipline kids and frustrated detention officials try to ease crowding in detention facilities, Van Dyke explained.
A legislative subcommittee has recommended that judges be given back their detention power when the Legislature meets in January.
Juvenile judges, coming late to the lobbying game, are meeting with lawmakers this month to build support for the move.
But that won't solve the underlying tension, Van Dyke said. Only a hefty infusion of cash into the long-neglected juvenile justice system can do that.
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(Additional information)
Utah detention and confinement
Detention centers
Utah has 10 secure detention programs and one in the works, including five full-service detention facilities, three rural multiuse centers and tow short-term holdover centers.
All but one are operated by the Division of Youth Corrections; the Canyonlands Youth Home is a multiuse center operated by the Office of Social Services.
- Cache Attention/Detention
- MOWEDA Youth Home
- Salt Lake Detention
- Canyonlands Youth Home
- Southwest Utah Youth Center
- St. George Youth Center
- Castle County Youth Center
- Central Utah Youth Home
- Uintah Basin Youth Center
- Provo Youth Detention Center
- Draper youth work-camp facility (April 1994)
Secure facilities
Secure confinement of the most seriously delinquent youths is provided by Utah's three secure facilities: Decker Lake Youth Center in West Valley City, Mill Creek Youth Center in Ogden and Southwest Utah Youth Center in Cedar City.