Longer wait times and fewer options for girls plague Wisconsin juvenile justice system already in disarray

As Milwaukee County continues its search for a new secure facility for youth to replace the Department of Corrections’ Lincoln Hills facility, a longstanding issue is getting renewed attention: the lack of options in the juvenile justice system for girls.

Copper Lake, a secure detention facility for girls, is located on the Lincoln Hills site north of Wausau. Along with Lincoln Hills, the Legislature has ordered the closure of Copper Lake and plans to convert it to an adult prison. The state has missed two deadlines to shutter the facility, including the most recent one in 2021.

However, it remains open as state and local policymakers, Milwaukee residents, juvenile justice activists and parents wrangle over the costs and location to construct a new site.

Although the abuse allegations at the Lincoln Hills site — and its uncertain status due to Act 185 — has made some judges reluctant to send more girls there, few other options exist.

RELATED:Lincoln Hills juvenile prison was set to close in July 2021. So why are judges still sending children there?

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With girls being sentenced for violent crimes at a higher rate than in the past, many advocates are concerned they are not receiving the treatment programs they need as they work their way through a system slowed by the pandemic, suffering a shortage of workers and originally designed for boys.

Girls in detention are seeing longer stays

Since becoming a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge in 2018, Laura Crivello has given hundreds of juveniles disposition orders that send them to facilities for treatment and rehabilitation.

She said burnout and staff turnover throughout the juvenile justice system are impacting the quality of care juveniles receive once they get to a facility.

“We have less people than ever before to tackle these issues,” Crivello said. “The people retiring or quitting or stopping their mental health treatment for youth, it’s a resource issue of epidemic proportions and it comes at the worst time.”

Struggles to place girls in group homes and other residences, often exacerbated by the pandemic and quarantine rules, have led to girls spending more time in detention at the county's Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center. 

The average stay of girls in detention was 18 days in 2021, up from 12.6 days two years ago. However, Claudine O’Leary, the director of Represent Milwaukee, a nonprofit dedicated to providing counsel and support for girls in the juvenile justice system, noted this figure can be misleading because it includes in the average people who are in and out quickly, sometimes spending just hours in detention.

From quarantine times to the elimination of some activities, waits are so long, O’Leary said she has observed girls printing off calendars to mark off the days until they can move to group home or other placement site — and getting more frustrated the longer they are there. 

“They may act out,” O’Leary said. “(There’s) far more emotional stress and that leads to the yelling and banging and other things bringing stress on the staff.”

“Detention was never determined to be a long-term solution,” she added. “It was supposed to be a temporary place.”

Crivello said at one time, there were 22 girls in secure detention, which is the highest number she’s ever seen and much higher than the 1 to 2 present during the pandemic. Kelly Pethke, the interim administrator of the Milwaukee County Department of Children, Youth & Family Services, said there were roughly 13 girls in April, but the number can change by the minute.

Few facilities tailored to girls

Of the detention center's 127 beds, only 16 are designated for girls.

In contrast, the Milwaukee County Accountability Program (MCAP) — a traditionally boys-only program housed inside of the detention center where juveniles are sent as an alternative to Lincoln Hills — has 24 beds for boys alone.

There are trauma-informed qualified residential treatment facilities that work with youth in the justice system, such as Lad Lake, Northwest Passage and Family Services. Many of them are co-ed. The Milwaukee Academy and two branches of the youth-focused nonprofit Positive Alternatives are examples of programs that exclusively work with girls.

Beyond that, options are scarce.

According to the Wisconsin Group Home Directory, the entire state of Wisconsin has just 16 co-ed group homes that serve “delinquent/corrections” youth and only eight exclusively for girls compared with 14 exclusively for boys. This breaks down to roughly 48 beds exclusively for girls versus more than a hundred exclusively for boys.

But even that number can be deceptive.

Many of these group homes have beds can be used by other youth who are not there due to the justice system. For example, House of Love has two six-bed female group homes that work with girls who have experienced sexual/physical abuse, emotional/behavioral disorders, alcohol and drug abuse and/or pregnancy as well as those aging out of foster care.

This lack of resources exclusively for girls in the justice system, Crivello said, “has been an ongoing issue for as long as its existed.”

In fact, a 2008 analysis from University of Wisconsin system researchers noted, “effective gender‐responsive care remains elusive in Wisconsin and elsewhere.”

The researchers found that girls who come into the juvenile justice system are more likely than boys to have run away from home, survived sexual abuse, experienced pregnancy, have a psychiatric condition and/or become involved with partners — especially males — who are also committing crimes.

“Adolescent girls are entering the juvenile justice system at higher rates than in the past, requiring that professionals responsible for administering programs respond to their specific needs,” researchers wrote.

O’Leary, the Represent Milwaukee director, said addressing the problem picked up some steam around the time Copper Lake was slated to be closed. “It had always been like occasionally, we would pipe up and say, ‘Where is the MCAP for girls?’” She said. “Then around the summer, they started talking about, maybe there should be an MCAP for girls.”

An MCAP for girls hasn't fully come to fruition yet.

Last year, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Audrey Skwierawski sent a girl to MCAP. She didn't move into the unit. Instead, MCAP services, which include family counseling, restorative justice, behavioral therapy and alcohol and drug abuse counseling, were brought to her living unit in detention.

Pethke said this is the result of the confusion wrought by Act 185, which has led a handful of girls to be sent to MCAP since late 2021.

Pethke said Children, Youth & Family Services often partners with groups such as Represent Milwaukee, My Sista’s KeepHer, and Pearls for Teen Girls, to provide girls with programming.

In non-COVID times, Crivello said girls in detention waiting for adjudication or disposition have had an opportunity to study at a Wauwatosa public school, receive mental health treatment and behavioral classes, get assessed for addictions, participate in restorative justice, work in a group with O’Leary and connect with a social services employee.

However, in light of the pandemic, she noted some of the programing has been curtailed or organized virtually, with most juveniles only receiving anger management sessions, a social service employee, therapy and assessment for substance abuse. 

Pethke said other programming is slowly returning to normal.

Tamika Glenn is the teen coordinator for COA Youth & Family Centers, and also runs an organization called GLOW (God Leads Our Worth) Up Milwaukee, focused on young boys and men.

Glenn was working at Community Advocates when she met Aniya Mitchell, a teenager who had bounced between foster and group homes since the age of 13. In 2016, Mitchell ended up at the Vel Phillips detention center after a fight.

“She told me, ‘Miss Glenn, there weren’t programs for young ladies in there.’ They weren’t taught about sex education or anything like that. She said they would give them a meal, and they had their room and a game room,” Glenn said.

Mitchell said she felt isolated during the nine days she was there and told workers she was suicidal in hopes that she would get out faster.

She didn't.

Instead, she said, she found herself in a cold cell wearing a restrictive suicide vest.

“Being up in that room, it kinda felt like a prison, but not — there's not really a lot to do,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell was eventually diagnosed with a mental health condition and given medication. Even when she was discharged to a group home and put on an ankle monitor, Mitchell said she was still forced to spend most of her time in her room because the girl she fought with — the same fight that led her to detention — had been placed in the same group home.

Now 19, Mitchell said outpatient therapy and medication have done wonders for her. But she looks back on her experience in detention with frustration and confusion.

O’Leary said accounts like those are not uncommon.

“There were never enough supportive services for these girls to begin with, and it’s only gotten worse,” she said, noting that there are fewer and fewer professionals willing to work with the girls. “I’ve heard and witnessed that from the girls: there’s no one to talk to.”

As arrests trend downward, need trends upward

Although the arrests and referrals of girls who go through the juvenile justice system have trended downward over the years — from 413 in 2011 to 147 in 2021 — Milwaukee County Chief Judge Mary Triggiano said more girls are being adjudicated for violent crimes.

“Years and years ago, it was only young boys that committed crimes. All the resources, all the money, all the projects were put into youth boys to figure out how to stop recidivism,” she said. “Starting in 2004, you started seeing some of these girls aren’t following that pattern anymore, but not enough to throw resources at it. Now, more than ever, we’re seeing more girls involved in violent crimes.”

“What we usually did was say, put them in the boys’ program,” she added. “But girls have different needs, wants and issues.”

Copper Lake is the state’s only correctional facility for girls who commit serious crimes.

With the facility being four hours away from Milwaukee and many families unable to travel so far, juvenile justice advocates worry about the mental health of the girls at Copper Lake and whether they are receiving adequate care.

AN IN-DEPTH LOOK:How the Lincoln Hills crisis unfolded

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services broke ground in March on an expansion of the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Madison, a rehabilitative center for juveniles that offers intensive mental health treatment. Although the expansion would add 20 beds for girls, the structure is three years away from being open.

Milwaukee is much further behind, with conflicts over funding, choosing a location and other challenges meaning that a facility will likely not be able to replace Lincoln Hills for four or more years.

Pethke said Children, Youth & Family Services is being assisted by the National Crittenton Institute’s National Girls Initiative to develop more girls-focused programming.

O’Leary is also part of that workgroup.

In 2020, the state received a $425,000 grant to implement findings from the initiative, by funding three Milwaukee nonprofits focused on justice-involved girls.

But last year, those three nonprofits — Youth Justice Milwaukee, Represent, and My Sista’s KeepHer — lost that opportunity to increase their capacity when the money was rerouted to Milwaukee County first, which added a set of logistical prerequisites that ultimately became too much for the small, grassroots organizations to overcome.

The money was returned.

“It was painful for all involved,” O’Leary recalled.

“We don’t have a shortage of ideas, we don’t have a shortage of expertise, we have a lot of opportunity here,” she said. “But what we don't have is a clear sense of direction. That’s my concern.”

Talis Shelbourne is an investigative solutions reporter covering the issues of affordable housing and lead poisoning. Have a tip? You can reach Talis at (414) 403-6651 or tshelbourn@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @talisseer and message her on Facebook at @talisseer.

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