San Mateo County introduces its new juvenile detention facility to the public today, and there will be no bars on the windows.

The county is trading in a 58-year-old building that the head juvenile court judge called "truly medieval" for a campus that features flat-screen monitors and indoor air-quality sensors while being designed to handle everything from housing violent delinquents to providing counseling to victims of child abuse.

It's the most expensive construction project in county history and the cornerstone of what proponents say is a new approach to rehabilitation and juvenile justice.
                                                                              Bars on windows, stark contrast with new facility

"We don't believe in only punishment. We believe in hope," County Supervisor Jerry Hill said during a tour of the complex. "The ... old facility was a jail. It was intended to punish, not rehabilitate. That is really the major paradigm shift here."

Court, probation, mental health, substance abuse, medical and dental facilities ring a central courtyard that includes an undulating running track, a turf field and a basketball court. Housing units with different security levels, a school and a separate dining facility line other sides of the courtyard.

Proponents say the design serves two primary purposes: It creates an environment that mimics the outside world to prepare detained youth for release, and it offers a one-stop shop for juvenile services.

   State-of-the-art juvenile facility in San Mateo, CA

"San Mateo County, and this facility in particular, is definitely a national example of integrating juvenile services," said Ted Lempert, president of the Oakland-based youth advocacy group Children Now and a former San Mateo County supervisor. "I'm thrilled. From my perspective, hopefully this will be a model for others."

The 300,000-square-foot facility -- built with water-saving plumbing fixtures, recycled carpet and a track made from recycled athletic shoes -- is short on barbed wire and long on earth tones, blond wood and shatterproof windows.

It even includes a new name -- replacing "Hillcrest Juvenile Hall" with the softer-edged "Youth Services Center."

The people who funded the new $150 million center -- the taxpayers -- are invited today to the official introduction of a project that's been in the works for six years. Juveniles are scheduled to be transferred to the facility no later than Nov. 15, project manager James Sowerbrower said.

San Mateo County's current juvenile hall -- a squat, cinderblock building that is sweltering in summer and cold in winter -- undercut efforts to reform troubled kids, said Judge Marta Diaz, who supervises the county's juvenile courts.

"There were snakes in the shower coming out through the drain one year," Diaz said. "There was dripping water, mold; it was just horrible. It's truly medieval. ... We're taking these kids and we're trying to offer them some hope for their future and we put them in a place like that? It sends a mixed message."

The new facility dwarfs the old juvenile hall, where many youths double up in 7-by-9-foot cells -- one on a bunk, the other on a foam mat on a graffiti-etched plastic riser to keep it off the concrete floor. They often eat, work out and study in the same dank room. In the old setup, teens, arms behind their backs, are escorted through the halls individually by staff and have to stand against the wall when visitors pass.

The new facility allows youths to walk around by themselves, their movements followed by security cameras and monitored by a guard in a control booth who remotely unlocks doors and gives instructions via an intercom if necessary.

That provides teens a degree of freedom and responsibility that they'll need in order to reacclimatize, Diaz said.

"In this building, just like real life, you will have to learn that when you walk from your unit to school, you have to get there on time and without getting into a fight," Diaz said. "We want kids to see outside and wish they were there."

In addition to the 180-bed juvenile facility, the campus includes a receiving home for abandoned and abused children, three special-needs group homes and a 30-bed girls camp for teens to learn life skills while transitioning from detention. The old facility is to be demolished and replaced by a garden where youths will grow produce to sell at farmers' markets.

The cost of the project tops the San Mateo County Medical Center's $125 million price tag. About $21 million came from a federal grant, but the majority of the funding came from revenue bonds that county agencies will pay back out of their budgets, Hill said.

Some residents have questioned such a costly outlay.

"There's been comments from the community that the new facility is too nice," Sowerbrower said. "Well, we're building a facility for human beings."

Diaz took a slightly different tack.

"I see it as a savings," she said. "I see it as an investment in our community's future. If we're taking these kids in as our kids, kids of the system, then we have to provide the same level of care and services that we would if they were our own children. Because they are."
 

What: Official dedication of the San Mateo County Youth Services Center. Open to the general public.

Where: 222 Paul Scannell Drive (formerly Tower Road), San Mateo.

When: 1:30-3 p.m. today. RSVP to (650) 363-4526.

Web site: www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/YouthServicesCenter