By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
MONTGOMERY CITY, Mo. — Convicted and sentenced as an adult for robbery and burglary, Aaron R. Lang, 16, of Joplin, is headed to a unique, secured-care treatment program for juveniles in Montgomery City. So is 16-year-old Scott Fue Yang of Seneca, recently convicted of burglary in an adult division of Newton County Circuit Court.
Should Thomas White, 14, of Joplin, be convicted of the offenses for which he has been ordered to stand trial as an adult, he also could be sent there.
White is accused of taking an assault rifle to Memorial Middle School in October 2007, firing the weapon into the ceiling and repeatedly trying to shoot his principal at close range.
At his adult-certification hearing in December, the state’s dual-jurisdiction program for youth convicted of serious felony crimes figured prominently as a possible sentencing option into the recommendation of the Jasper County Juvenile Office that White be tried as an adult.
Initial regional use
Local courts in Southwest Missouri have certified relatively few juveniles to stand trial as adults for felony offenses in recent years. State law requires that 10 criteria be met for adult certification.
With few local juvenile cases meeting all the criteria, none of the judges in courts covering Jasper, Newton, Barton, McDonald, Lawrence, Barry and Vernon counties prior to this year had exercised a “blended-sentencing” option available under state law.
Blended sentencing allows the court to assess both adult and juvenile sentences following a conviction in adult court, with the adult sentence suspended while the offender undergoes incarceration and treatment at the Montgomery City Youth Center, about 50 miles east of Columbia.
Loran Hume, the center’s director and manager, said during a tour that treatment consists of intensive, around-the-clock supervision and counseling, both group and individual. The counseling available includes substance abuse, sex offender and family therapy.
Residents at Montgomery City also attend classes year-round under a curriculum designed to meet state requirements for a high-school degree. Once graduated, they have an opportunity to take college correspondence courses or receive vocational training.
Between their 17th and 18th birthdays, the state mandates an extension hearing for each offender in the dual-jurisdiction program, Hume said. The director, counselors and others may testify at the hearing in the court of conviction as to the juvenile’s progress.
The court may choose at that time either to allow an offender to leave the program and re-enter their community on probation or to extend their stay in Montgomery City. Typically, the courts extend stays in the program due to the seriousness of the offenses, Hume said.
Another hearing is held before their 21st birthday, at which time the court either allows them to re-enter their community on probation or revokes the suspension of the adult portion of their sentence and sends them to an adult prison.
“To date, every youth who has successfully completed the program has been given the opportunity to go into the community on probation,” said Brent Buerck, senior program administrator for the Missouri Division of Youth Services.
‘Kids helping kids’
Montgomery City is a fenced-in center, where offenders reside in one of four cottages with 11 beds arranged in a large, barracks-style room with individual study desks and a common living area.
There are athletic fields, a gymnasium that doubles as a cafeteria, classrooms, a computer lab and a commons room for visitation with family.
Ten staff members are assigned to each cottage, with two on duty and responsible for maintaining “eyes-on” supervision at all times, even when the residents shower or use a restroom, Hume said. The high ratio of staff members to residents and more than 40 video cameras around the prison campus provide a level of security most adult prisons cannot match, he said.
The center has not had a single incident involving weapons or rape since it opened eight years ago, he said.
“You cannot do a treatment with kids if the kids do not feel safe,” Hume said.
The emphasis at Montgomery City is on counseling within group dynamics, which Hume described as “kids helping kids.” Besides individual and group counseling services, each cottage holds group meetings five nights a week during which the focus is on individual issues both inside the center and out.
“It’s kind of a peer culture,” Hume said.
Josh, an 18-year-old resident, and Korey, 19, said every time an issue develops within a group, it is discussed at length, with the group and staff often “circling up” around the individual member with whom the problem has developed. They said youths come to know each other well in the process, developing brotherly relationships.
“When you live with someone for such a long period of time, it’s hard not to get personal with them,” Josh said.
For the first 90 days a resident is at the center, his group focuses on an analysis of the offense. Group counseling then shifts to a resident’s life story and on to family and peer issues, social issues faced on the outside, abuse issues they may have had and the impact of their crimes on victims.
Each April, residents observe a Victim Empathy Week, during which they consider and acknowledge the “victim trees” and ripple effects of the crimes they committed.
“We’re not just doing time here, we’re actually gaining something,” Josh said.
Josh and Korey are two of the older residents in the program. They are both currently enrolled in the University of Central Arkansas through correspondence courses.
Younger inmates attend classes six periods a day Mondays through Fridays throughout the year. The center has a staff of seven teachers.
Hume said the center’s success rate in getting residents through high school and general educational development requirements is competitive with the average school district in the state.
“And that’s with kids who have not been particularly successful in school outside of here,” he said.
In the center’s last nine-week session, 31 of its 44 residents made its A and B honor rolls.
Program screening
The Montgomery City center currently has all 44 of its beds occupied, but only 16 of the juveniles are in the dual-jurisdiction program. The remainder are traditional juvenile offenders not under any adult court sentence.
The dual-jurisdiction youth typically have committed more serious offenses that can carry lengthy Department of Corrections sentences and represent “complex victim issues,” said Buerck, with the Missouri Division of Youth Services. The longest sentence of a youth currently housed there is 30 years.
While no criminal offense is precluded from the dual-jurisdiction program, not every juvenile convicted of a felony as an adult is sent to Montgomery City, Buerck said.
“We have people here for murder, for forcible rape, for forcible sodomy, armed criminal action and robbery,” Buerck said. “So we have some serious (Class) A and (Class) B felonies. The thing that excludes you from the program is a lack of desire to work with the program.”
Before the court sentences a juvenile to the program, DYS conducts an assessment to see if they are a good fit, Buerck said. DYS has the final say as to whether a juvenile is sent to Montgomery City or not. He said screening for the program includes testing that measures propensity for predatory behavior.
Youths convicted as adults, but deemed unsuitable for the program, generally are sent to secure Department of Corrections facilities for juveniles in Bowling Green and Vandalia, where there are not as many treatment options, he said. He said some youths convicted as adults choose to be sent elsewhere because their attorneys convince them that they are likely to be released sooner.
Traditional juvenile offenders typically spend six to nine months in residential treatment centers. Dual-jurisdiction youth spend an average of three to five years in the program.
“It’s convincing a young person that three to five years of treatment and rehabilitation is better for them than a quick return to the community,” Buerck said.
Thirty graduates
Missouri’s juvenile justice system has become a national model for other states based on relatively lower rates of recidivism.
The state had the lowest rate of reincarceration of juveniles in the first year following release, 9 percent, among several states in a study conducted by the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice published in 2005. Several states had reincarceration rates of 20 percent or higher in one year’s time, according to the study.
Buerck said the reoffense rate among traditional juveniles in Missouri over the first three years after release is 30 percent, one of the lowest rates in the nation, with reoffense defined as either having probation revoked or committing another crime. Among dual-jurisdiction youths, the three-year rate is 17 percent.
He said while that may appear to argue for a wider application of the dual-jurisdiction approach, there have not been sufficient numbers of youths go through the program as yet to make that argument and there are other considerations, including costs.
Since the Montgomery City Youth Center opened in 1999, just 30 youths have successfully completed the program, Buerck said. Six juveniles in the program were returned to their courts as unsuccessful by DYS petitions, he said.
The per diem costs for offenders in community residential programs was $112.38 and $119.08 for offenders in moderate-care programs, according to the Division of Youth Services’ annual report for fiscal year 2006. The average daily cost for offenders in secure-care programs, which includes the dual-jurisdiction program was reported as $157.71.
There is also the stigma of adult certifications on a juvenile’s permanent record to be considered, Buerck said. The offenses of juveniles in the division’s traditional programs are sealed and do not become a part of their permanent record. But those sentenced as adults face that stigma the rest of their lives.
Buerck said the division believes its record with traditional treatment programs remains successful and should not be abandoned for a more punitive approach. He said DYS does not want to see significantly more juveniles certified as adults.
“But, if the court has to certify a young person — and sometimes they have to — we believe we’re a better option than corrections alone.”
Serious crimes
The Missouri Division of Youth Services received 1,214 commitments, or recommitments, of youths by state courts in fiscal year 2006, the most recent year for which an annual report has been published. The figure does not include dual-jurisdiction program offenders who were certified and tried as adults.
Among the 1,214 commitments to traditional juvenile programming, just 116, or 9.6 percent, were for the most serious crimes, namely Class A and Class B felonies.
Area commitments
in FY 2006
Jasper County 48
Newton County 19
McDonald County 3
Barton County 1
Vernon County 9
Lawrence County 13
Barry County 6
