In September, a 16-year-old boy was arrested and charged with robbery in Carlisle, Pa.
Police said he had offered to buy a cellphone from a man using an internet application, but ran off when the man handed him the phone. The victim gave chase and when he caught up, the boy pulled out a folding knife and pointed it at the victim, according to police.
Pennsylvania law requires that any juveniles age 15 or older charged with certain felonies like robbery or aggravated assault be charged as adults if certain circumstances are met, such as a weapon being used during the crime.
Despite no one being injured in this particular crime, this meant the boy was charged as an adult.
Magisterial District Judge Jonathan Birbeck set bail at $29,000, sending the boy to Cumberland County Prison because he was unable to pay, according to court records.
The boy stayed in the adult jail for more than a week before his case was withdrawn and moved to juvenile court.
As an earlier article in this series reported, on any given day, dozens of children aged 14-17 are housed in adult jails in counties across Pennsylvania while facing charges in adult court.
Most will see their cases dismissed or moved to juvenile proceedings, but not before they spend weeks, months or even years locked up with adults, according to a review of court records conducted by The Sentinel in Carlisle, Pa.
In 1995, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed Act 33, which requires people between the ages of 15 and 17 charged with certain felonies — like robbery or aggravated assault — to be charged in adult court if they meet certain requirements, such as the use of a weapon during the alleged crime.
As a result of that law, since the beginning of 2014, at least nine youths have been charged in adult court in Cumberland County, according to a review of court records conducted by The Sentinel.
Only four of those cases resulted in adult convictions, but most of the youths spent time in the county jail, according to court records.
‘Out of Sight, Out of Sound’
Every time a juvenile is brought into a prison or jail, special rules apply.
“The general rule is when you have a juvenile in custody they have to be out of sight and sound of adult offenders,” said former Cumberland County Prison Warden Earl Reitz , who retired this month.
That rule came into effect with the passage of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, Reitz said.
Prior to that, Reitz said juveniles who were brought into the jail were treated the same as any other inmate.
“PREA changed all of that,” Reitz said.
Because so few juveniles are brought into the Cumberland County jail, when it does happen, an entire housing unit has to be opened to house that child. This not only secludes the child out of sight and sound of the adult population, but it greatly increases the costs.
Each housing unit has to be manned 24 hours a day by staff. The daily salary cost to have someone man a duty station is a minimum of more than $400, according to Reitz, but that is an underestimate of the cost.
Reitz said opening a housing unit on a temporary basis for a situation like a juvenile being held pretrial would likely require an extensive amount of overtime. To fully open a housing unit requires the hiring of five new employees to account for three shifts, paid time off, weekends and holidays, Reitz said.
He said a recent estimate put the cost of opening a new housing unit at roughly $250,000 per year for salary and benefits.
Because of the cost, Reitz said he tries to find housing in another county for juveniles.
York County has a housing unit permanently set up for juveniles.
Cumberland County has to pay to house inmates in other counties, but that cost is usually around $60 to $70 per day, far cheaper than the cost to open a new housing unit.
The jail is required to provide educational services to juveniles while they are incarcerated. Regardless of what district the juvenile was in at the time of arrest, the school district where the jail is housed provides those services.
In Cumberland County, the jail is in Middlesex Township, which is in the Cumberland Valley School District.
Under current law, juveniles charged with adult offenses are not allowed to be held in juvenile facilities. Reitz said changing the law to allow for that when appropriate may elevate some of the issues and offer better outcomes when juveniles are charged.
“They already have the systems in place,” he said. “If I had to keep [a juvenile] we could do it, but it’s going to come at a hell of an expense.”
In 2017, more than 400 children ages 14 to 17 in Pennsylvania being charged with criminal offenses in adult court, according to an analysis conducted by The Sentinel.
Most of the juveniles charged in adult court spent time in adult jails.
Where’s the ‘Rehabilitation’?
According to the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), multiple studies suggest these laws have little to no deterrent effect on children as a group and can actually increase criminal involvement for youths sent through the adult system.
The studies found young people who were tried in adult courts are more likely to be arrested and be arrested more quickly and frequently than similar young people sent through the juvenile system, according to the OJJDP.
A 2003 study found youths charged as adults in Pennsylvania were twice as likely as similar youths sent through the juvenile system to be rearrested within 18 months.
Several factors play into these outcomes, including the long-lasting negative effects of a criminal conviction, a sense of resentment and injustice felt by the youths tried and punished as adults, learned criminal behavior from being incarcerated with adult offenders, and the decreased focus on rehabilitation in the adult criminal justice system, according to the OJJDP.
Fine said a core tenet of the juvenile system is the rehabilitation of the child, whereas the adult system focuses much more heavily on punishment.
Even just holding young people in adult jails can have serious negative consequences.
Youths held in adult jails and prisons are more likely to die by suicide than their adult counterparts, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. They are also roughly 36 times more likely to die by suicide than those held in juvenile facilities, according to a 2007 study conducted by the Campaign for Youth Justice.
“These kids are ending up in juvenile court anyway,” said Laura Fine of the Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project, “Why are we exposing them, traumatizing them, and holding back their education [by holding them in adult jails]?”
Fine said adult jails are not designed to handle the needs of young people or properly equipped with tools to discipline them.
What may be an effective means of discipline for an adult, like segregation, can be damaging to a child, she said.
“Even the most well-meaning and well-equipped staff are functioning in a system that is ill-equipped for the young people who are being treated in it,” Fine said.
This is a condensed and slightly edited version of the third and final article in Joshua Vaughn’s “Kids in Cuffs” series, produced as a project for the John Jay/Tow Juvenile Justice Reporting Fellowships. Read the full article and series here.