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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 2017)
Street Roots • Dec 15-21,2017 News Page 5 NORCOR, from page 4 facility before, and so on my first visit, just talking to the kids, I was really shocked first by how young they seemed. You know, some of these kids are 12, 13, 14 years old. I’m a parent, so I’ve spent a lot of time around kids. I’ve never seen kids in a setting or environment like this. So yeah, it was personally heart-wrenching. And the kids also seemed timid and just like they were walking on eggshells. I was interviewing them in a small room, and usually the kid was sitting closest to the door, and at the end of the interview, all of the kids, they were afraid to touch the doorknob. They were like, “We’re not allowed to touch doors.” I had to kind of like squeeze past the youth in order to touch the doorknob, and it was just very awkward. And it was just one illustration of how fearful they were of making a wrong move. owwcowmssQF «UAM HOOD WER SKRNM« | H ' . < • T.S.: Take the reader on a sensory tour with your words o f what you sensed inside this facility. ST R E E T R O O T S P H O T O S.R.: When you enter any jail, you go Northern Oregon Regional Corrections Facilities, or NORCOR, is a multi-county ja il in The Dalles. It includes a juvenile detention facility, through a sally port, which is two secured which was the subject o f an investigation by Disability Rights Oregon, which reported “inhum ane” conditions for youths. doors with a vestibule in between. And there’s that distinctive clank of the heavy secured door. The doors are operated from a kids have a mental health diagnosis who are kids more likely to get de eper involved in was filled in but no reason was cited, or the control booth, so you don’t touch the doors, reasons themselves, like looking around, in the criminal justice system. But I think the criminal justice system. but it clanks behind you. I’ve heard other talking, hands above waist, these are things it’s safe to say that probably all youth who T.S.: The report’s recommendations show people talk about how intimidating that that I think staff could turn a blind eye to, are involved in the criminal justice system that improvement may be needed in a range of sound is, how distinctive. It’s a sound that or could enforce. have a history of trauma, and trauma often institutions and agencies to fix what’s going you don’t hear anywhere other than jails and goes hand in hand with mental health T.S.: The report shows a facility that is on at NORCOR. What recommendation prisons. After entering, there’s an area for concerns. We certainly interviewed kids who keeping its juveniles behind bars for nearly contained in this report would you emphasize visitation, and the kids, unless a special struggled with impulses to harm themselves twice as long as nearby M ultnom ah County as most important, and why? - head banging, cutting, exception is made, the visits facilities. NORCOR has also struggled scratching, scratching their are behind glass, so the kids S. R.: Juvenile detention facilities should financially as an institution. Do you think skin. That was a struggle would sit on one side and be licensed and regulated. I think that’s kind NORCOR is paying bills by intentionally that kids told us about. the families would sit on the keeping youths incarcerated for longer time of an overarching recommendation, and if other side of the glass. And periods? there was a state entity that was charged T.S.: The NORCOR Disability Rights Oregon is then in the center of the scorecard your report talks with ensuring safe conditions, adequate S. R.: What I can say is that it’s my organizing a book drive facility, there’s the control about, with items like “hands health care and programming, adherence to understanding that NORCOR has struggled tor youths incarcerated at booth, with tinted windows, above waist, ” or “talking in trauma-informed and evidence-based to remain financially viable in recent years, NORCOR. Disability so you can’t see into that line,” or “doing the practices and preventing the youth solitary and so I think they’re pursuing contracts Rights Oregon attorney control booth, but the staff m in im um ,” it seems like that’s confinement, I think that would be a great both on the adult side and the juvenile side inside can see you, and Sarah Radcliffe says part o f a vicious cycle. Is that with whatever entity they can contract with solution to the problems at NORCOR and to that’s where all the doors readers can drop off soft- right? in order to fill beds. I think the factors the potential problems at other places. are operated. And then cover books at the driving the length of stay is a complicated S.R.: The way their there are three wings that T. S.: Where NORCOR is concerned, is it Disability Rights Oregon question. I think the county juvenile system works is a kid has to are the housing units, so more about revising the playbook or throwing office at 610 SW departments really need to try to dig down earn his or her way off of that’ll be a hallway lined Broadway, Suite 200, in disciplinary status by passing into that data and understand what’s causing the playbook out and starting over? with individual cells, and Portland or call 503-243- delays. I think a lot of the delays are shifts, that scorecard is used S. R.: The rules that really jump out to an each cell has a window in preadjudication delays, so it’s just a matter to determine whether or not 2081. outside observer as out of line and not really the door, and then there’s a of getting kids’ cases through the system. the kid passed the shift. The related to any disciplinary goal, it’s easy to day room area at the end of conditions of consignment T. S.: One o f the pillars o f American society scratch those rules out, but to create a real the hall that has just a table for kids who are on disciplinary status were is the idea of responsibility. When an adult is that’s secured to the floor. And inside the cultural shift at NORCOR and make it a very hard to endure. And so it was very hard incarcerated, the assumption most of the time cells, when we visited, depending on the place where kids feel safe and supported to pass shifts, because you could fail for is that it’s his or her responsibility. Can you time of day, there might be some kids in the and they are learning tools to go out and things like falling asleep or for mental- talk about how this concept applies, or doesn’t, classroom or in their cells, or sometimes become healthy, happy members of their health-related behavior, like you’re closed in they might be all in their cells. The cells are to those under 18? communities, that would require a major yourself for hours on end and you’re feeling very sparse, so if a kid is in the Youth Care S.R.: Studies show that most youth overhaul. really anxious and upset and you start to Center program, they got a warmer blanket outgrow “delinquent behavior,” so we just yell. T. S.: What have I not asked about that you and a bath mat on the floor, and they were know in terms of adolescent brain There’s a lot of research that shows that would want to let Street Roots readers know? allowed to have pictures of three family development, adolescence is a period when conditions of solitary confinement members on the wall. But for kids who kids are still figuring out the consequences S. R.: Noelle Crombie from The exacerbate mental health issues for people weren’t in that program, they just had your of their actions and they’re more likely to Oregonian went out to NORCOR on Monday that have pre-existing conditions and can mattress on a concrete slab, a thin blanket, take risks. As a society, we really need to cause a mental health issue for someone (Dec. 4), and there were only six kids in one book and the Bible. If they were on invest in these kids’ long-term success. And custody, so that’s a big question that I have, disciplinary status, they just had the Bible. It who hasn’t had any history. So yeah, I would when we lock them up behind closed doors, say that was a vicious cycle. It was very hard is how did they clear out the facility, and was clean; it struck me as a clean and freshly especially in a facility like NORCOR, where to comply with the conditions that what happened with that? painted facility. they’re not getting rehabilitative services, presumably would get you off of disciplinary T. S.: How many were there when you were T.S.: The report notes that 70 percent o f the status. The system is also arbitrary in that it they’re not getting, frankly, the love that all children are entitled to, we’re basically youths in NORCOR meet criteria for a mental doing your investigation? was based on just an individual staff writing off their futures. Because the health diagnosis. Can you expand on that? person’s report. We saw lots of records S.R.: At each of our visits, there were evidence is out there, and we know that where the pass box was scribbled out, and S.R.: That’s a general stat, for state and more than 20. those types of interventions actually make national figures - estimates about how many then the fail box was filled in, or the fail box BOOKS FOR NORCOR YOUTHS
