Detention Often a Terrible Option for Troubled Children
But frustrated parents are having their
uncontrollable kids arrested in hopes of finding them
help they need.
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 15, 2003
Diana Matthews pressed charges against her 17-year-old
son after he shoved her. She hoped he would get mental
health and drug counseling.
Instead, Daniel Matthews was killed in a fight two weeks
ago inside Pinellas County's Juvenile Detention Center. He
was the first youth killed in the center.
Yet his story is not uncommon.
More parents are trying to help their troubled children
by having them arrested and charged with a crime.
"I call it an epidemic," said Cathy Corry of Clearwater,
who runs the Web site
www.justice4kids.org "It's these parents' attempt to
save their children from themselves and to protect society
from them."
The trend is troubling even to Florida Juvenile Justice
Secretary Bill Bankhead.
"I don't think it is a good idea for folks to have kids
arrested with the idea in mind that that's the only way that
they're going to get mental health services," he said.
The problem, experts say, is that police are not
counselors, and the detention center is not a mental
hospital. They say it's better to find counseling or
residential mental health treatment for children before
putting them in handcuffs.
"Parents need to recognize that rather than looking to
the juvenile justice system as being their end-all resource,
there are other resources," said Pinellas-Pasco Executive
Assistant Public Defender Judy Estren.
Finding the right form of help can be difficult. "A lot
of times they get referred from one location to the next to
the next," she said.
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Frank Quesada said he hears
this story often in the Unified Family Court, which deals
with juvenile crime, abuse, neglect, divorce and other
family law matters.
Some parents repeatedly call police about relatively
minor problems with their kids. Some get so confused that
they seem to think "it is for some reason the state's
obligation to raise their children." He also sees parents
truly struggling with difficult children. These parents call
police only in desperation, worried their kids will hurt
their brothers, sisters or even grown family members.
"Your heart goes out to them," he said.
Quesada described one mother and sister who took turns
staying up late at night to make sure a 10-year-old didn't
follow through with threats to burn down the house.
Some of these families come before him because "we have
little or no mental health resources for our children, and
every time I turn around they're being cut."
Most families will never have to deal with having a child
arrested.
But Tom and Tinaya House of Oldsmar said their
16-year-old son's behavior has left them groping for
answers.
Steven, they say, can be lovable, and they stress how
much they do love him. But he frequently threatens and hits
others in the house, and once picked up a knife next to his
birthday cake and threw it, narrowly missing Mrs. House, she
said. It stuck in the wall.
The Houses have called police about Steven. So have
school officials. After the knife just missed her, Mrs.
House thought, "Oh my God forgive me, because I've got to
call."
Steven has been diagnosed with various psychiatric
disorders and frontal lobe epilepsy which, according to a
neurologist's report about him, can "often cause severe
behavioral problems."
A psychologist's evaluation last October said residential
treatment had been recommended for him. But the evaluation
said that was not a possibility because Steven did not have
Medicaid, and the family could not afford the treatment.
Tom House is an insurance sales manager, and the family
lives in a comfortable three-bedroom home with a swimming
pool. But a residential neurology center they looked into
cost $500 a day - financially out of reach.
Other suggestions for treating Steven at home frustrated
the Houses. The plans "do not keep their other children safe
and ignore Steven's escalating behavior. Due to their
frustration with the health care system, they are turning to
the juvenile justice system for assistance," the
psychologist's report said.
Tinaya House said a probation officer and others in the
system actively encouraged them to call police about Steven,
saying it was the only way to get help.
He has been charged at least five times with battery,
from incidents at school and at home. But during a stay at
the JDC in December, the Houses say, Steven was restrained
by a detention officer. He had been shouting abusive
comments at officers, and eventually hit one in the eye.
When he was released, he had scratches on his face and a
broken shoulder. An abuse report called in against the
officer was inconclusive. One doctor interviewed in the case
considered the broken shoulder to be recent, but one did
not.
The Houses recognize that Steven is a challenge to
control, but they think the officers used excessive force
and hurt Steven unnecessarily. They don't want Steven back
in the JDC.
Now, they wonder how to get proper care for Steven while
providing a safe home for their other three sons.
"We live in constant turmoil," Tinaya House said. "There
is a great deal of hostility, friction and opposition among
family members every time an incident occurs ... Steven
needs constant supervision and attention. With our family's
strength and our hope and our faith, we're able to continue
day by day."
Asked about the incident at the JDC, Juvenile Justice
spokeswoman Catherine Arnold said she was not familiar with
it but stressed that "our detention officers for the
Department of Juvenile Justice undergo a rigorous training
process ... part of the certification process includes use
of methods that help de-escalate potentially explosive
situations," as well as appropriate restraints.
Bankhead said the Department of Juvenile Justice has
greatly increased the mental health services it provides to
youths detained in its facilities.
But it's much better to find help for youths at an early
stage, said Chris Card, executive director of Hillsborough
Kids Inc., which handles foster care and adoptions for the
Department of Children and Families.
For many parents, "they're saying, "Can you take my
child, can you take my child, can you take my child, I can't
live with them anymore,"' Card said.
But it's difficult, he said, to find residential
treatment for children unless they have certain diagnoses,
or they have been abused, or they have been moved into the
juvenile justice system.
Or their parents have money for private care.
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