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\nThe high price of juvenile justice – Part 1
\nBattle lines are drawn over cost, location of proposed youth detention center
\nby Leo Adam Biga
\nAs Douglas County pushes for construction of a $120 million justice complex downtown,
\nconflict and controversy have emerged over greater good and expediency versus
\naccountability to stakeholders.
\nThe 10-story tower courthouse annex would house a combination of county adult and
\njuvenile courtrooms, judges’ chambers, public defender and probation offices and
\nrelated facilities. The juvenile justice element is getting the most attention because a
\nfour-story youth detention center containing 48 to 64 beds would connect to the annex.
\nServices and programs for juveniles and families would be onsite. A parking garage
\nwould also be built.
\nThe Douglas County Board of Commissioners is charged with approving or denying the
\nproject. A majority of the seven-member board supports it. The project’s two vocal
\nopponents, commissioners Jim Cavanaugh and Mike Boyle, take issue with its scale
\nand location as well as the mechanism to pay for it and the private nonprofit created to
\noversee it. They’ve called for a reset to halt the project to review alternatives, including
\nscaling it back.
\nMeanwhile, the county seeks to acquire a nearly century-old brick building at 420 South
\n18th Street, raze it and then build the complex. When owner Bob Perrin refused to sell
\nlast summer, the county began eminent domain proceedings, only to have a court order
\nthe county to back off pending further hearings.
\n\u00abThere are obstacles we’re going to have to overcome now and we’re working through
\nthose,\u00bb said commissioner Mary Ann Borgeson, who champions the project. \u00abI hope in
\nthe end we’ll be able to come to a resolution. It (eminent domain) isn’t a popular thing to
\ndo or use, but we can’t go forth really without that (building).\u00bb
\nCavanaugh sees things differently.
\n\u00abWith the court having stopped eminent domain for now
\nit allows us that chance to step back and take a deep breath and look at alternatives
\nthat exist and that will work,\u00bb he said. \u00abWe have been proposing specific alternatives,
\nwhich include construction of a juvenile justice center courthouse on land we own
\nadjacent to the (current) courthouse and refurbishment of the (existing) youth center on
\n42nd Street. We would add a courtroom facility to the youth center to allow proximity.
\n\u00abKids will have access to outdoor activities on a campus that looks more like a school
\nthan a correctional center
\nwith numbers significantly lower than those proposed for the $120 million project.\u00bb
\nThere’s broad agreement the current courthouse is past capacity and long overdue for
\nexpansion.
\n\u00abWe have been trying to jerry-rig judges into cubbyholes and all kinds of things to try
\nand make this thing work without having to do what we know we needed to do 20
\nyears ago, which was to build an annex facility,\u00bb said Ben Gray. an Omaha City Council
\nmember who served on the city-county building commission driving the project and now
\nchairs the nonprofit overseeing it. \u00abSo this was not fast-tracked or anything like that.\u00bb
\n\u00abIt’s nothing new,\u00bb Borgeson said. \u00abWhat is new is that we actually have a conceptual
\nplan that puts the center across the street from the existing courthouse-civic center.\u00bb
\nShe said other locations, including the old Civic Auditorium site and MUD property, were
\nconsidered.
\nThere’s less agreement on the need for a new detention center and how many youth it
\nshould serve.
\nProponents tout the efficiencies of a one-stop shop. The current center near 42nd and
\nWoolworth would be replaced by the new one, thereby putting detainees in close
\nproximity to the justice system and to services supporting their transition back into
\nsociety.
\n\u00abHopefully, this one-stop shop being imagined will be built based on the input of what
\nkids, families and community providers who work with them say they need,\u00bb said LaVon
\nStennis-Williams, a county Operation Youth Success initiative committee member. Her
\nReConnect Inc. serves families of current and former incarcerated. \u00abPrograms that can
\nkeep kids from being detained are underutilized. That has to be factored in.\u00bb
\nShe said a proposed partnership among the county, University of Nebraska Medical
\nCenter and Creighton University to bring more psychologists and psychiatrists onsite \u00abis
\ngoing to be a game-changer in terms of getting the assessments done on children
\nquicker.\u00bb
\n\u00abThen we can look for services that will keep kids at home,\u00bb she said. \u00abOn any given
\nday, most of the kids detained are there awaiting placement and professional
\nassessment, not for their underlying offense. You’ll remove maybe two-thirds of your
\npopulation with the right professionals engaged and looking for alternatives to detention.
\nThere are opportunities in the community to put those things in place.\u00bb <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"