Youths line up in the hallway outside a classroom at the Vel R. Phillips Youth and Family Justice Center as part of the Milwaukee County Accountability Program. This is one of the placements tracked by a new county dashboard. (NNS file photo
By Devin Blake
This story was originally published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, where you can find other stories reporting on fifteen city neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Visit milwaukeenns.org.
A new dashboard provides real-time data on Milwaukee County youths in secure care, which includes county-run detention centers and state-run juvenile correctional facilities.
Loved ones, the general public and policymakers can use it to better keep track of where exactly the youths are within the juvenile justice system.
“It was frankly embarrassing to have members of the public come to us and be like, ‘How many people are in X facility?’ And for me to have to say, ‘Let me get back to you in several days,’” said Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, former Milwaukee County Board supervisor who collaborated on the dashboard.
What it shows
According to the dashboard, as of Wednesday, there are 102 Milwaukee County youths detained at the Vel R. Phillips Youth and Family Justice Center, which serves as the county’s juvenile detention center.
Youths are there for different reasons.
Some are there on a dispositional order, a court-ordered placement for youths found “delinquent” but who do not meet the criteria for a correctional order.
Others may be held pending court hearings, on a warrant, as part of a sanction or as part of the Milwaukee County Accountability Program, said Kelly Pethke, administrator for Milwaukee County Children, Youth and Family Services.
Offenses that can warrant a dispositional order often include property crimes, lower-level assault or repeated probation violations.
For the first time, anyone can immediately see how many youths in total are in the facility.
“I can look at this and know where kids are at this point in time without having to go through all of our data systems. But I think more importantly, it’s facing the community,” Pethke said. “So the community knows how many kids we have in our detention center – how many kids are in secure care – because those are questions we get.”
Dispositional vs. correctional orders
The dashboard also tracks Milwaukee County youths on what is called a non-serious juvenile offender correctional order.
These are youths who have committed offenses that require placement in a secure facility rather than a detention center but do not meet the threshold for a serious juvenile offender order, which is reserved for the most-serious crimes.
As of Wednesday, Milwaukee County has 26 youths on a non-serious juvenile offender correctional order. Those on non-serious juvenile offender correctional orders remain under Milwaukee County’s financial responsibility while in custody and are supervised by the county upon release.
These youths may be placed in state-run juvenile correctional facilities, such as Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Schools or Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center.
They also may be temporarily housed in a county-run detention center like Vel R. Phillips while awaiting transfer.
In rare cases, they may be held in an adult jail if they are facing new adult charges or waiting for placement.
Youths on a serious juvenile offender order are entirely the responsibility of the state and have committed the most-serious offenses, such as homicide, armed robbery or other violent felonies.
The dashboard only tracks how many Milwaukee County youths were sent on serious juvenile offender placement in the past month, not a running total of all serious juvenile offender youths in state custody.
What’s next?
The dashboard is intended to be updated every business day.
There are types of county custody that are not yet included but that officials intend to track in the future, such as youths in group homes or residential treatment care.
“This is really just the beginning,” Pethke said. “We would like to have a larger dashboard, not just talking about kids in secure care but just broader youth justice in general.”
It’s a matter of figuring out the logistics of getting and updating these other types of data.
Wider reform efforts
Those involved in proposing the dashboard also envision changes.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Felesia Martin thinks it will be useful to see how much money the county is spending on these placements.
“We pay so much in taxes. What do we get in return for those taxes?” Martin said. “I want folks to understand – yes, when there are serious crimes, we need to incarcerate.
“But we also need to look at the whole problem, get to the root cause and invest in those things that we know make the community stronger and safer.
Some advocates for the families of those incarcerated are heartened by the dashboard.
Getting better data about their children helps parents meaningfully advocate on their behalf, said Rose Scott, president of Prison Action Milwaukee, a local nonprofit that advocates for individuals impacted by the criminal justice system.
“We have to have some input, and the dashboard helps with that because we have to be aware,” she said.
Like Martin, Clancy wants it to be the start of a deeper conversation.
“I’m glad that we can look at it, and I’m glad that hopefully this provides us some data and some insight into how many kids we’re locking up, but the next step is to take this data and stop locking up so many kids,” he said.
“By the time they are incarcerated, we’ve already failed them in so many ways.