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Connecticut Juvenile
Training School to close
(October
2005 Issue)
By Nan Shnitzler
On August 1, Gov. M. Jodi Rell called for closing the Connecticut
Juvenile Training School (CJTS) in Middletown. The 240-bed training
school is Connecticut's only secure residential treatment facility
for adjudicated male juvenile offenders ages 11 to 16.
"It is increasingly clear that the programs at CJTS are not working
and that the time has come to close this facility and rededicate
ourselves to more effective treatment for our children," Rell says
in a statement.
The $57 million facility is four years old.
In April, Rell directed the Department of Children and Families
to map out the future of CJTS. The resulting Aug. 1 report recommends
closing the training school by 2008 and developing in its place
three regional Treatment and Reintegration Education Centers (TRECS),
two to serve 45 boys each and one for up to 12 girls. CJTS houses
about 90 boys now.
"The plan is based on the principle that children can be served
most effectively through a continuum of services that are close
to the communities where they live and are driven by their needs
- not those of the institutions that serve them," the report states.
Estimated costs for the two boys TRECS range from $23 million to
renovate to $34 million to build. Annual cost per resident falls
from $365,845 at CJTS to $240,686 in a regional center.
The report was written with other state agencies, experts and
those within the juvenile justice system. But it was not the first
call for changes at CJTS. In Sept. 2002, state Children's Advocate
Jeanne Millstein released a lengthy report detailing numerous inadequacies
from the prison-like atmosphere to improper use of restraints, inadequate
suicide monitoring and high recidivism rates. While DCF agreed with
the findings, "virtually no meaningful steps have been taken during
most of the life of CJTS to bring about constructive change," Millstein
wrote in a 2004 follow-up.
In June 2004, Youth Rights Media, a Connecticut advocacy group,
premiered a documentary called "CJT$: At What Cost?" that fed public
awareness of the facility's failure to fulfill its mission of rehabilitation.
Featuring a former resident, the documentary exposed instances of
poor treatment corroborated by CJTS's own video surveillance that
revealed abuse and neglect by staff.
The state opened CJTS in August 2001 to replace the circa 1860
Long Lane School for troubled youth.
"With juvenile justice reform 10 years ago we knew it was preferable
to build a network of local, specialized 10-20 bed facilities based
on the needs of kids," says Rep. Mike Lawlor (D-East Hartford).
But former Gov. John Rowland advocated the construction of one large
facility. The contracts for CJTS were at the center of a corruption
investigation of Rowland's administration. He is currently serving
a year-and-a-day federal prison term and his chief of staff is awaiting
trial. Rell was lieutenant governor at the time.
"At the end of the day, we spent $57 million that was not appropriate
for the purpose," Lawlor says.
The state plans to re-purpose the high-security campus for the
Departments of Public Safety and Emergency Management and Homeland
Security for an estimated $33 million, according to the Aug. 1 report.
The governor made it clear it will not be used as a correctional
facility.
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