The Legal Rights Center and Minnesota Coalition for Youth Justice hosted a town hall at the Sabathani Community Center on Nov. 13, amid concerns that the county isn’t taking appropriate measures to prevent youth incarceration.
Among those to speak were youth activists increasingly at odds with Hennepin County officials who appear unwilling or unable to reform aspects of the juvenile justice system, and public defenders disillusioned by the lack of social service benefits available to families.
“I’ve seen child protection cases where children end up in foster care, and the county allows them to lose their [Supplemental Security Income],” said Tracy Reid, a Hennepin County Public Defender. “They don’t even keep a benefit that’s available.”
Youth activist Sydney Oundo, 17, said she’s done with county leaders who promised and then failed to expand social services to avoid sending teens to the Juvenile Detention Center. She is equally concerned that young people affected by the system don’t have a say in county policies — including as part of the working group Hennepin County launched to offer recommendations to state lawmakers next year.
“I’m tired,” Oundo said. “Right now, I’m feeling like there’s a rhetoric of ‘community responsibility.’”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty recognized the slow rate of change and said she plans to speak with Hennepin County Administrator David Hough about appointing youth advisors to the working group.
“I have been county attorney for almost two years, and we have been working over a year and a half to push the county on getting some of this done. The county is not unlike other systems: It moves like the Titanic.”
Such preventive services are needed, Reid said, given that minors face the same barriers that trap their parents.
“Every day I see moms who tell me that they have been asking for years for help and services for their kids. And they’re not getting anything in Hennepin County,” Reid said. “Right now, it will take six to 10 months minimum.”
Adesola Oni, a senior behavioral health department administrator in Hennepin County, said youth facilities are understaffed and under-resourced to meet demand. Boys Totem Town juvenile correction facility in St. Paul, Hennepin County Home School, and Family Services in Duluth all closed in 2019.
“What we’ve done is embed social workers into the detention center,” Oni said. “My sense is that for every young person coming into court, that requires a lot of resources, and potentially the delay is because the capacity versus the means is just not where it should be.”
Minnesota is considering a law to raise the minimum age of juvenile delinquency from 10 to 13. This would keep the state from funneling children 12 years or younger into the juvenile justice system.
Mira Berndt, part of the Youth Network at the Legal Rights Center, is concerned that there are still opponents who support the conviction and sentencing of minors as young as 10 in Minnesota.
“I know there’s been a lot of pushback on the bill,” Berndt said, “so I was just wondering what is currently in the works or being imagined and what we can do as community members to support those efforts?”
Moriarty said her office supports the age change. “I think one of the things that can happen is pushing back on an attempt to repeal it, because I think that’s in the works now.”
Reid said she represented many defenders who could not stand trial due to their age or complex mental health needs. She finds out through assessments that underlying health issues would prevent a child from comprehending the basics of court proceedings. When children are found incompetent because of their age, mental health status, or intellectual development disorder, they are released from juvenile detention — often just to be arrested again.
“The child could benefit from residential mental health care. And there is nothing of the sort,” she said. “So those kids just get sent home. They often have no other care. They commit some other act and even get brought back in the system. They’ll just collect pieces until eventually Hennepin County left them sitting illegally in a detention center.”
Said Moriarty: “When we prevent young people from being in the system, that’s public safety. When we prevent people from becoming harmed, that’s public safety. We are here to protect people’s rights.”
County OKs emergency crisis stabilization center
In late October, the Hennepin County Board unanimously approved emergency plans to create a Youth Behavioral Health Crisis Stabilization Center as pressure mounts to help kids with complex mental health needs avoid revolving through the juvenile justice system. When children are found incompetent through age, mental health status, or intellectual development disorder, they are released from juvenile jail, often just to be arrested again.
Such was the case when Minneapolis police arrested a 10-year-old boy for driving a stolen car through a playground on Sept. 20 outside Nellie Stone Johnson School. The boy has a criminal history dating back to May 2023, with around 30 police records.
Launching such a center was among the county’s goals, but the current lack of placement options forced leaders to act now. Funding will be provided through surplus dollars from six infrastructure projects that are already nearly complete.
The center is intended to fill a gap in services for kids who need short-term residential treatment to stabilize their behaviors while awaiting longer-term treatment plans. As of now, few options are available. Youths are placed in juvenile detention facilities, in emergency rooms — or remain at home with family members ill-equipped to meet their needs.
Hennepin County Administrator David Hough said the county will spend $15 million to turn two floors of the Hennepin County Behavioral Health Center into the youth treatment facility. Up to $7 million more annually will go to Nexus Family Healing to operate the 10- to 15-bed crisis facility. Nexus Family Services operates a range of residential services, home-based therapy, and other treatment programs in Minnesota.
The building, at 1800 Chicago Ave. in Minneapolis, currently offers walk-in mental health and substance use disorder support for adults. The youth facility is projected to open in three to six months, with stays expected to max out between 30 and 45 days as longer-term solutions are sought.
The crisis stabilization center will offer three primary services:
- Assessing children’s needs to develop treatment plans.
- Providing short-term housing for children presenting intense behavioral challenges.
- Providing detox and recovery support for children with substance abuse disorder.
Clint Combs welcomes reader responses to ccombs@spokesman-recorder.com.