by Kelsey Penrose
On Thursday morning, Carson City Supervisors heard from representatives from Carson City Juvenile Services and Sheriff Furlong about the current needs of juvenile services, including the fact that they are not PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) and ADA (Americans Disability Act) compliant due to the building being outdated.
During a review of the facilities, it was found that juvenile services lacked basic safety mechanisms such as an alarm system and a fire sprinkler system, and the HVAC system was outdated and could not provide optimal air quality within the building.
Supervisors heard a presentation on the needs assessment, and discussed how to move forward with representatives from Juvenile Services as well as the architects behind the assessment.
Supervisor Stacey Giomi questioned whether there could be a way to combine juvenile and district courts, which he says also needs to be expanded.
“Is there a way to merge those courts, while we’re expanding the district court, to add a juvenile court there? I don’t know. There seems to be there could be a way to do that,” said Giomi.
He also stated that during COVID, detention centers learned how to mitigate transmission by incarcerating less individuals.
“Incarceration and reform is talked about a lot,” said Giomi. “I absolutely don’t want people who are a danger to this community to be free. But I think we have to think about ways to not burden the tax payers to incarcerate people who don’t need to be incarcerated.”
Supervisor Maurice White asked whether or not there had been any ill effects from not incarcerating everyone who “normally” would have been (i.e. in the pre-pandemic era).
“I think it’s too soon to say,” said Ali Banister, Chief of Juvenile Services. “As soon as we opened the facility back up entirely, we saw our numbers increase significantly with really serious youth in our system again. This morning we’re sitting at 12 youth and every single one of them needs to be detained because of the seriousness of their charges. It’s a tough question to answer.”
Sheriff Ken Furlong stated that the sheriff’s office has seen an increase in adolescent crime.
“We had a large portion of our population going unchecked during COVID,” said Furlong. “Juveniles tend to be very flexible and operate very well in a structured environment. We lost a lot of that during COVID and I believe we are seeing some of those impacts now.”
“Ms. Banister and I strongly agree that the focus is about juvenile services,” continued Furlong. “High risk offenders? Yes, we need to safe guard the community. But when it is not necessary to house these children, services need to be at the forefront and I would urge that understanding. It’s not only a juvenile detention center, it’s a juvenile services center.”
Furlong stated across the country they are seeing an increase of very serious crime at younger and younger ages.
“Incarceration cannot always be the answer,” said Furlong. “We need to work with these kids and with their families. We need better infrastructure to provide for their services.”
White stated that he had a problem with the expansion without “what I would consider, good data” to support the expansion.
Supervisor Stan Jones said that while at one point, the juvenile facility was a regional, state-of-the-art facility, it is not any longer.
“What concerns me is that there is no alarm system, no sprinkler system,” said Jones. “I understand that when it was built it wasn’t required, but I think it’s a necessity now. It’s an old building and we either have to decide to put a lot of money into it or…someday, OSHA is going to inspect us, and I bet they close us if they do.”
Jones stated that he didn’t believe the city could delay it “four or five years while we do our studies.”
“We have some things we need to immediately correct,” said Jones.
Supervisor Lisa Schuette echoed these sentiments.
“Having worked at juvenile probation, I absolutely see a need for expansion, especially in light of the new requirements,” said Schuette. “What I think is really important as we move forward, is being thoughtful of how we move forward with design.”
Supervisor Giomi added that he would like to see more going towards services.
He stated that there is a Clark County Program called HARBOR, in which any law enforcement officer can bring a first-time, non-violent offender to a facility which houses representatives from the school districts, behavioral health services, counseling services, and more, and the children in those cases are never incarcerated but are able to receive important services to help rehabilitate them.
Supervisor Giomi also stated he would like to consider partnering with other nearby counties to construct a regional facility that all counties would contribute to.
Mayor Lori Bagwell asked juvenile services about why the phases were provided with detention first as opposed to services first.
Banister stated that while the HARBOR program would be her dream program, right now the main issue at detention is with compliance issues, with ADA and PREA.
Banister also stated that there has been a marked increase in cases of adolescents suffering from mental health issues within the facility, and since the closing of West Hills Hospital in Reno, there has been nowhere else for them to go. The facility currently only has one padded safety cell, which juvenile services says is not enough.
Mayor Bagwell stated that she didn’t think the major renovations could be accomplished any time soon because of funding issues.
“Unless someone else helps us along the way with some funding, I just can’t see that we’re ready to go into design yet because we can’t pull the trigger to bond anything until 2025, which would take every single penny that we have,” said Bagwell.
Jones disagreed, and stated that while he understands the city may not have tens of millions of dollars to put towards a new facility, they need some safety adjustments immediately.
“I don’t think we can just say ‘deal with what you’ve got for the next three or four years,’” said Jones.
“We simply don’t have the money (to undertake the first phase of the project),” said Bagwell.
“They need some modifications now in my opinion and I think we ought to address that. I.e. the sprinkler system, i.e. a padded cell, etc.”
Bagwell stated that on a case-by-case basis, the city would be willing to help.
“If you have some mental health issues that needs to be resolved, those can certainly be brought forward,” said Bagwell. “I’m not opposed to helping.”
“The detention center is in desperate need, like Supervisor Jones said,” said Banister. “That’s why (the projects) are phased in this way.”
“To the mayor’s comment, I don’t think anyone would be opposed to to these interim things,” said Supervisor Giomi in reference to safety mechanisms like the sprinkler systems and padded cells.
Mayor Bagwell stated that the soonest anything could be bonded would be in 2026 for the main projects, and doing so would use up every bit of bonding the city could have at that point.
Mayor Bagwell thanked Juvenile Services for bringing this to their attention, and that they were sorry they wouldn’t be able to help immediately, but they looked forward to the future project.
No action was taken on this item of discussion and may be revisited. Juvenile Services has the option of bringing individual safety modification requests to the board for funding.
