Whew. What a couple of weeks that was. Bills and lawmakers and religious restoration acts and budgets and capital gains and charter schools and the commentariat chiming in from all sides. It was all enough to wish for the first minor league baseball game of the year. Nothing like a slow relaxing baseball game sans clock to put politics out of mind.
But something else happened in the last 10 days that might end up meaning a lot for the state, too, even if the Legislature didn't vote on it:
The state announced it would begin sending juveniles back to the lockup in Danville, Ark., soonest. And what's more, it seems like a good idea.
Who would have thought that just a few months ago? What a mess it was. After the news side of this newspaper began digging, all sorts of reports alleged all sorts of problems at the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center--and any juvenile detention center has enough problems without creating more. Documents told of guards in Danville punishing kids with pepper spray and weird mechanical restraints, or both. Documents from the lockup showed that those punishments weren't just used on kids during violent fits, but kids who were yelling, calling names, banging on tables and throwing toilet paper.
The kids that end up in these juvenile prisons are tortured enough. They don't need to be tied down and pepper-sprayed when they act out. The stories out of Danville were bad enough that the state pulled its juveniles and started its own investigation.
And now . . . .
What's the word? Encouraging? Or maybe promising?
Over the past three months or so, the sheriff of Yell County, Bill Gilkey, has retrained the lockup's staff and hired a former sheriff, Mike May, as the lockup's director. Out are the pepper-spray bottles and that thing they called The Wrap, which bound kids in most uncomfortable-looking positions. In are different techniques to deal with unruly kids, such as talking and rewarding them for good behavior.
Director May says he's working on new programs for the kids. Such as a creative writing class. A cooking class. A personal finance class. Sheriff Gilkey says don't forget a possible small-engine repair class.
It's such a change that Scott Tanner told reporters this: "I think the conditions in Yell County have improved significantly." And this: "I think we're all on the same page in protecting and providing for kids."
Who is Scott Tanner? He's the ombudsman for the state who blew the whistle on that Wrap thing back in September, and alerted the Youth Services people. To him, the state should listen.
When the new director, Mr. May, began talking about how things were going to change at the lockup, he told the paper about his plans for getting the kids more visitors. As he put it, "Before I got here, there were times where several of these kids from different parts of the state would be in here for a month, two months, three months and never have a visit. So all of my staff has been informed that any kid who has been here as much as two weeks without a visit, I want to know about it."
And, he says, if it takes volunteers from local churches to visit these kids, he'll ask local churches to do so.
If this is beginning to sound more like a juvenile lockup than the Big House, it should. These kids--all of them--will get out one day. Better they should be given a chance to become good citizens.
It appears as though the folks running the juvee hall at Danville are trying to give them that chance.
Yes, encouraging. That's the word for it.
Editorial on 04/08/2015