Pulaski County is on track to jail 5 percent more children — roughly 30 more — this year than last, records show.
Between January and October of 2017, 486 youths were locked up at the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center. During the same months this year, that number was 513, according to county data.
Officials say they’re unsure why there’s been an increase. However, 2017 was an especially low year for juvenile jail admissions at 568. Pulaski County records show that the admissions count was 701 in 2016. In 2012, it was about 940.
Admissions data don’t show how many children are repeat offenders and jailed multiple times in a given year.
Youth advocates contend that some jailed children whom pre-detention screenings deem “low-risk” stayed behind bars only because there was nowhere else for them to go.
That’s why advocates hope to see an emergency shelter open in Little Rock. For now, Pulaski County youths have to be transported to facilities in other counties, if there is room.
“Not everybody needs to be locked up,” said Pulaski County Circuit Judge Joyce Warren. “There needs to be another safe place for children to stay, another option available before locking them up.”
Warren leads the county’s participation in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a widespread effort introduced in 1992 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national advocacy group for child well-being.
The initiative offers officials ways to prevent the needless incarceration of children. One recommendation is to assess children when they first get in trouble. Each child is scored on factors such as the seriousness of the allegations and criminal history. Those scores correspond to a decision on whether the child should be released, sent to a nearby community program or detained until the case is tried.
Pulaski County began routinely screening youths in April.
But low- and moderate-risk children who shouldn’t be locked up under this scoring system still are jailed — mostly because there isn’t space in an alternative facility, noted a Pulaski County alternatives initiative report.
For instance, between April and September, 64 of 445 low- to moderate-risk kids were jailed; that’s just over 14 percent.
During the same months, a total of 278 children — including “high-risk” youths — were admitted into the juvenile detention center.
Even if space in a shelter can be found for children, those facilities are hours away, said Dorcy Corbin, a longtime juvenile public defender who also participates in the initiative.
“I had a client that had to go all the way to Monticello,” Corbin said. “It’s a long way — two hours down there and two hours back. But we were fortunate to even get her amnesty shelter. The choice was putting her in Monticello or having her locked up.”
The Center for Children’s Law and Policy, another national child-centered organization, evaluated Pulaski County’s 48-bed youth jail in 2016. The center’s review found that too many kids held there likely didn’t belong behind bars.
For instance, one-third of detained youths were released within three days, raising the question of whether the children were ever a threat to public safety, the report found. It also noted that 42 percent of detention admissions were youths charged with misdemeanor offenses.
The center also reported that about 54 percent of children jailed at the facility were there for violating probation — “a percentage that is among the highest that we have seen in our work on juvenile justice reform.”
Results from the review prompted Pulaski County to join the Casey Foundation’s detention alternatives initiative.
Betty Guhman, state Division of Youth Services director, said she supports efforts by local governments that curb juvenile incarceration, a goal she believes is aligned with “part of the agency’s overall plan in reducing commitments.”
The Youth Services Division oversees seven state youth lockups, known as either juvenile correctional facilities or juvenile treatment centers. The facilities house children who have been adjudicated as guilty by a circuit judge.
The division will spend $27.6 million of its $49 million budget to imprison children throughout fiscal 2019, which began on July 1.
Guhman met with Pulaski County officials last week to “discuss rethinking their juvenile detention centers.”
The director views emergency shelters as a potential diversion service, a program that directs kids away from formal processing in the juvenile justice system while still holding them accountable. During public meetings, she often stresses the importance of communities relying more on diversion than detention.
Benton County, which joined the alternatives initiative six years ago along with Washington County, is working on opening an emergency shelter for boys by converting one of three wings in the county’s juvenile lockup.
About $300,000 — $211,000 of which was awarded to the county last year by the Endeavor Foundation, a nonprofit based in Northwest Arkansas — covers the cost of conversion.
Eight jail cells are now private rooms. The shelter also has its own outdoor recreation area, a separate classroom and a lounge, where kids can play video games and foosball.
There’s more space at the Benton County Juvenile Detention Center, since fewer children have been jailed there than in previous years. Between 2009 and 2017, the county cut back facility admissions 41 percent, according to the county’s annual reports. Kids also spend less time behind bars when they are there, these reports show.
Drew Shover, Benton County’s probation supervisor, said the shelter conversion is ongoing and described opening it as an “arduous process.”
Shover said he believes officials were making “ardent strides in the licensing process” — a review that must go through the state Department of Human Services — and that the shelter could open in January.
“The reason we have kids here is because their homes aren’t functioning,” Shover said. “We need to make this environment home.
“I’m not trying to teach anyone a lesson by putting them in a facility. I am trying to stabilize their home,” he added. “This is a stopping point. Here, we will try to get everything squared up and do some case management so they can get where they need to be.”