New Juvenile Justice Facility Advances

After many years, Milwaukee County is finally moving forward with plans for a new juvenile justice facility that should allow the county to send fewer Milwaukee youth to state-run corrections facilities.

County officials are going before the Milwaukee County Board this month seeking acceptance of a $28.3 million grant from the state to redevelop the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center as part of a statewide overhaul of juvenile justice facilities. The grant would provide the majority of the funds for the $31.3 million project.

The project would build out a 32-bed facility at the juvenile justice center that would become a new type of facility for Milwaukee juveniles that have been convicted of a crime and sentenced by a court to a period of detention. The programming at the facility would represent an expansion of an existing county-run program that offers an alternative for the courts to sentencing children to the state-run prisons in Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake.

These state-run facilities and their troubled history of abuse were the entire impetus for the 2017 state legislation, called Act 185, that outlined the creation of these new county-run, post-conviction facilities called Secure Residential Care Centers for Children and Youth or SRCCCY.

The SRCCCY’s are one piece of a three-tiered plan to overhaul the state’s juvenile correction facilities, as laid out by Act 185. The statewide plan also calls for a new “Type 1” facility that would detain the state’s most serious juvenile offenders (homicide, sexual assault, armed robbery, etc.) and a new mental health facility for juvenile offenders in Mendota.

Milwaukee and a handful of other counties were approved for funding to build out and operate a SRCCCY. This piece of the larger statewide project is intended to create a system that leads to fewer youth being sent away from their communities to state-run youth prisons. This initiative was stalled for years due to underfunding by the state.

The county board’s Committee on Health Equity, Human Needs and Strategic Planning gave the first approval to accept the grant on April 5. It still has to be approved by the board’s powerful Finance Committee, the full county board and signed by the county executive.

Redevelopment of Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center

The $31.3 million redevelopment of the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center will include renovation of existing space for an expanded MCAP program; new educational facilities and classrooms; renovation of recreational space; mental health and dental care facilities; and a new “welcome area” that includes space for family visitation and dining, according to a report by the county’s Department of Children Youth and Family Services (CYFS). The redevelopment would add eight beds to the 127-bed facility.

County officials estimate the annual operating cost for the facility at approximately $18.2 million. This budget includes a $3 million increase in programming and services that will be funded with savings created by the reduction in youth sent to the state-run facilities.

The state charges a daily rate to Milwaukee County of $1,154 for every child incarcerated in a state facility, amounting to more than $400,000 a year. And that charge is expected to increase in the new state biennial budget currently being assembled. The daily cost per child at the planned SRCCCY is estimated at $983 a day — this includes the cost of the extra programming.

Kelly Pethke, director of the division of Children Youth and Family Services, recently told a county committee that officials are planning to have construction begin in 2024 and have the facility operational by the end of 2025 and, at the latest, early 2026.

Alternative to Incarceration Program

Milwaukee County’s plan for its SRCCCY includes expanding a program that provides an alternative to traditional youth incarceration, called the Milwaukee County Accountability Program (MCAP). This program is for youth that have been convicted of a crime, whereas the youth held at the Vel. R. Phillips facility are being detained as their case proceeds through the courts.

The program has 24 beds and a regular waitlist. The county plans to expand the program from 24 to 32 beds, including four for girls, who make up a minority of the children that come in contact with the juvenile justice system. The program involves a shorter period of incarceration followed by a release back to the community, which could involve a residential treatment program or at-home monitoring. The program represents an attempt by the county to treat the root causes of the behavior that landed a child in the juvenile justice system, as opposed to simply incarcerating them.

When the MCAP program is full, the only other options available to the courts for sentencing — when judges believe a period of incarceration is warranted — are the state-run youth prisons at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake.

When children are sent to the state prisons, it is not just more expensive for the county, Pethke explained: “We lose all control over services programming, like this day, they’re disconnected from their families and communities, and we just, we feel we need to do as much as we can to get these kids home here in Milwaukee.” Many of the kids coming into the county’s MCAP program have “experienced a lot of trauma” and have “significant needs,” Pethke said.

In 2022, county officials sought permission from the board to formalize an agreement with Racine County that would have allowed Milwaukee youth to be ordered to the Racine County Jail when the Vel. R Phillips Center was overcrowded, which it frequently was in recent years. The agreement also allowed Milwaukee courts to sentence youth to a similar alternative-to-incarceration program. The Milwaukee County Board initially voted against it, then quietly approved the deal two months later.