As Navajo County officials consider ways to save money for county operations while still maintaining necessary services, the Board of Supervisors heard a presentation regarding an option to spend money already budgeted for housing and serving juvenile offenders.
In March, the county board made the decision to close the juvenile detention center in Holbrook due to the cost of services. It is now being decided whether to transport juvenile offenders to either Graham or Pinal county juvenile detention facilities.
Superintendent of Schools Jalyn Gerlich, Navajo County Probation Director Arno Hall and Deputy Juvenile Director Lynda Wilson proposed an alternative that would not require any additional funding, but could provide improved services for non-violent offenders and keep children in the county.
Gerlich informed the board that her district currently has a building on West Carlos Avenue in Holbrook that has the space to provide juvenile offenders an education, as well as counseling and an opportunity to learn life skills.
She explained that her office and the Navajo County Probation Department, in discussion with Navajo County Superior Court officials, have developed a program that would help local youth and reduce recidivism. She emphasized that she was not talking about taking money out of county savings for this endeavor; that it would use money that would otherwise be paid to a juvenile detention facility in another county.
Gerlich showed that from April 2016 to 2017, a total of 14 youth served an average of 109 days each in juvenile detention, with seven serving an average of 144 days each. At $175 per day to house the youth in another county, the cost would have been approximately $443,450. The cost for two youth care workers for the proposed program would be $150,000, including benefits.
The youth eligible for these services would be non-violent offenders, but they may have substance abuse issues, be victims of abuse, mental health clients or be chronically truant.
“We’re looking at matching up what is being provided at the detention center currently, along with the education portion and counseling coming in from Change Point and also some life skills training. How to balance a check book, maybe a little cooking, something a child would need to know once they became an adult,” explained Hall, noting that the superintendent’s student population can be supplemented by the youth that are brought in. He explained that these kids are not going to encroach upon the student count of other school districts and would be provided educational opportunities they might not get otherwise.
Gerlich explained that a typical day would begin with traditional schooling from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., then from 1:30 to 5 p.m. students would be provided counseling and tutoring, and taught life skills, leadership, workforce readiness skills and more. Students would then be bused to their home site wearing electronic monitoring and would be checked up on by their area probation officer.
“Oftentimes our students that are on those computerized school programs will sleep until 2 p.m., then play video games until 8 p.m. at night. With this, with the collaboration between these departments, we have a better chance of not only providing the services, but also enforcing them a little bit,” noted Hall. “We’re just trying to keep these kids on the mountain that you would actually be paying for to go to another location.”
District IV Supervisor Steve Williams appeared doubtful, stating that it really wasn’t a board decision as to whether there would be youth participating in this option. “It only works if that’s what the juvenile judge wants to do,” he said. “The juvenile judge would have to want to incarcerate less. So it seems to me whether it’s an additional cost to the county has much to do with what the juvenile judge wants to do.”
Hall agreed. “The conversations that I’ve had with Judge (Robert) Higgins and Judge (Michaela) Ruechel is that they would prefer to see Navajo County kids stay in the county,” he said.
Although the length of time a juvenile is incarcerated varies according to sentencing, Wilson said that in looking at the past three years of data, they had an average daily count of 15 juveniles. “Of the population of the last 12 months, 15 of those would be eligible for a program like this, 18 would not,” she said. “So we know that at least 18 kids will be sent off of the mountain. We’re trying to deal with the 15 that would stay. A judge has to sentence them to detention time, but a probation officer can implement that a juvenile must attend school and maintain passing grades.”
Wilson further explained that the number one time that a juvenile commits offenses is between 3 o’clock in the afternoon and 6 o’clock in the evening. “That’s when they’re out of school and parents are not home from work, and that’s when they get into trouble. By keeping them in our school until 6 at night with the life skills component and everything else that we have to offer, they’re not going to have time to do that. When they do go home, that’s when their field officer is going to check and make sure they are home and doing what they’re supposed to be. We see this as helping the kids and taking the money that would have been spent elsewhere,” she said.
Deputy County Attorney Jason Moore added that he believes his office viewed this option favorably and anticipated that they and the judges would be more likely to have the children stay in the county if possible.
After hearing the presentation, Williams said he felt that a large part of the conversation was unknown, but that he was looking forward to having that conversation and seeing what can come of it.
