Missouri juvenile justice practices praised, and copied

FULTON, Mo. -- Cynthia Cheever neatly arranged the stuffed animals on her wooden bunk bed's pink comforter. "And this one is from my grandparents," the 14-year-old chirped. "We are having a really good relationship now."

It wasn't always so.

Cynthia doesn't know her father, and her mother died more than a decade ago. Her grandparents took custody. But the girl seemed angry at the world. She stole money and a car from her grandparents and hung out with people who were stealing, doing drugs, drinking. Two of her friends in that risky environment died. Cynthia eventually ran afoul of juvenile authorities.

But living under a court-ordered "contract" with other juvenile offenders in a nurturing, home-like setting, balancing chores and schedules with mandatory school work, Cynthia says her life has changed.

Now she hugs and laughs and confers quietly with the other girls at the Missouri Division of Youth Services' Rosa Parks Center, a former college dorm housing up to a dozen female juvenile offenders.

There are strict rules but it's nothing like a prison. There are no cells, no guards, no electric fences. There is frozen pizza in the fridge, and the right to call other students into a circle to talk about problems before they can erupt into violent confrontations. No one gets hurt.

"I have to keep my mind clear, make better friends, do what I need to do to be responsible," Cynthia says. "It isn't hard to be good if you just keep trying."

Missouri's model of placing juvenile offenders into nurturing settings for rehabilitation has such a successful track record -- for example, a recidivism rate of just 8 percent, compared to upwards of 80 percent in California -- that other states are lining up to copy it.

"This is not 'get out of jail free,' because there are rules and requirements. But Missouri has set benchmarks," said Paul DeMuro, a New Jersey-based expert in juvenile issues.

California, faced with legal challenges to its scandal-scarred juvenile prisons, is the largest state to send representatives to Missouri. Officials were astonished to learn they are spending nearly double Missouri's outlay of about $43,000 a year per juvenile offender.

"Missouri has been the Show-Me State for us. We are all coming to Missouri to learn from their 30 years of experience," said California state Sen. Gloria Romero.

More than 15 states have sent representatives to Missouri, most with juvenile systems overseen by adult corrections agencies.

In contrast, Missouri's system is part of the Department of Social Services. And Mark Steward, director of Missouri's Division of Youth Services since 1988, is praised as a driving force behind the state's national reputation.

"We assess the risks and needs of each person, while other states use the prison model, where they go into a cell and have three hots and a cot," Steward said. "We tried it that way in Missouri for more than 100 years, too. It didn't work."

Violence and abuse were once so pervasive at what Missouri called training schools that judges balked at sending young offenders to the prisons.

In 1971, Steward set up a pilot project in Poplar Bluff with two dozen of the Boonville Training School's toughest young inmates. The boys were given responsibilities instead of shouted orders, bedrooms instead of cell blocks, and supervisors whose most effective weapons were quiet persuasion and peer support.

"Some ideas didn't work, some did. But the important thing was the setting and the approach, that treating these kids like bad people did nothing to make them good people," Steward recalls.

By the 1980s, with bipartisan backing, Missouri had replaced its training schools with smaller settings and therapy. Today there are dozens of Youth Services homes, staffed around the clock by supervisors with college degrees.

Days are filled with education and enrichment; the entire Division of Youth Services is certified as a school district. At Rosa Parks Center, the girls rise early and keep on schedule. Half shower in the morning, half in the evening, 15 minutes each. They form a line to brush after meals. A large common bedroom, with wooden bunks and individual closets, is personalized with stuffed toys and family pictures, along with posters drawn by each girl as therapy, laying out their own challenges and solutions.

"They are learning how to get along, to resolve problems without fighting," says Mary Finn, who helps supervise the Rosa Parks Center. "We circle up, so everybody can have eye contact with everybody else."

The girls of Rosa Parks called a circle after lunch the other day because one of them was brooding and withdrawn. They invited her to talk. She started crying. "I just want to say I am here if you want to talk," one girl said.

The circle broke up. The crying girl scrunched into her bed in the corner and stared at the wall.

Others drifted over. There were whispers and finally, the crying girl smiled. The others learned what was bothering her. Together, they put on their jackets and walked as a group to the library.

"Think about it. Many of these girls have violence in their past, and they could be violent now," said Steward, who watched the scene from across the room. "But they have learned a better way. They care."

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On the Net:

Missouri Division of Youth Services:

http://dss.missouri.gov/dys/