KOLD News 13 live, local and late breaking-Violent juvenile offenders will get a new home

Violent juvenile offenders will get a new home

By Bud Foster - email

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Violent juvenile offenders will soon have a new home. The juvenile jail. They're being moved out of the Adult Detention Facility.

The juvenile jail on Ajo has never housed the violent offenders but it will be upgraded and retrofitted to handle the most violent by March, 2010.

It seems odd the county must spend $1.12 million to move juveniles into a facility that was designed for them anyway.

But voters passed a series of initiatives back in the 1990's that required violent juveniles, as young as 14, to be treated as adults. So, they were remanded to the adult facility.

It was a get tough period when certain government officials predicted juvenile crime to skyrocket. It has dropped some 20% since.

But now in 2009, the Pima County adult jail is at capacity and looking for space. The Juvenile Detention center is vastly underutilized, only 1/3^rd of its capacity is being used.

The move will free up a great deal of space.

"Right now, we house juveniles in one per cell and the adults are housed two per cell," says Lt. Brooke Moore, who is organizing the move for the county sheriff's department,

The jail is designed for 2,000 prisoners but because of new laws requiring inmates serve more time, it's bumped up against its capacity quicker than anticipated. So every bed counts.

"There are 50 to 60 juveniles in the jail at any given time," says Moore. "So that's at least 100 spaces we get and that should carry us over for another year."

But there are still concerns.

Drive by the juvie jail on Ajo and it looks like a campus more than a jail. But when the more violent offenders are moved in changes have to be made.

Even though the county will try to be discreet, razor wire will be needed, the ceilings will be hardened, and other adjustments made to make sure inmates don't escape.

The Juvenile Detention Center starts to look more like a prison.

"What I'm talking about," says Pima County Board Chair Richard Elias, "is the ambience of the detention center and making sure that it maintains that."

Elias is worried that the look of the place may change and that may have social consequences.

Juvenile crime is down substantially in Pima County in the past decade and Elias believes some of it is due to the programs at the juvenile center.

He's also adamant that there will be no co-mingling among the juveniles.

"They will be segregated completely. Kids who come in with more serious crimes will be segregated completely for those with lesser crimes,' he says.

The county is in the process of hiring 19 new corrections officers to man the new juvie area. That's the bulk of the price tag. But it's cheaper than the alternatives.

A proposed bond sale for a separate facility for the remanded juveniles in 2006 came in at $28 million. Expansion of the jail, $91 million. So $1 million seems a bargain.

"That's the reality of living in a world where government has less money to spend," says Elias.  "We have to make due with what we have."