Juvenile Justice Facility Construction Could Start in Spring

Ground level conceptual design for the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center. Design from Milwaukee County.

Milwaukee County is on track to begin building a new facility that will keep dozens of Milwauke County youth from being sent to state run juvenile prisons.

The new facility, called the Secure Residential Care Centers for Children and Youth (SRCCCY), will allow courts to order youth to serve sentences in Milwaukee County. The $31.3 million, 32-bed facility will be built onto the existing Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Facility (10201 W Watertown Plank Rd.) and will expand a program that offers an alternative to traditional incarceration for youth.

The 127-bed Vel R. Phillips facility is used to hold youth on a court order who are awaiting trial in juvenile court. The new SRCCCY would be for youth that have been tried and convicted of a crime. Currently, there are 19 boys incarcerated at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys run by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

County officials are still working through some of the final details, but it’s expected that construction could begin in April or May, Kelly Pethke, Administrator of the Division of Children, Youth and Family Services told a county board committee Wednesday.

The majority of the funding for the facility, approximately $28.3 million, comes from the state. The idea for the SRCCCY comes out of legislation passed by the state in 2017 that was intended to reform the juvenile corrections system following allegations of abuse at the state juvenile prisons and a federal investigation of them. County officials are hoping the new facility will allow them to achieve a policy goal of zero children in state juvenile prisons.

The new SRCCCY will also add eight beds to a program that offers a sentencing alternative for courts other than ordering children to serve time in a juvenile prison. Called the Milwaukee County Accountability Program (MCAP), it involves behavioral therapy and a shorter period of incarceration.

The existing MCAP housing units will be remodeled as part of the new SRCCCY construction. Then two additional housing units will be built along with space for “an education center” and “medical, dental, behavioral health,” Pethke said.

The current timeline will have the new SRCCCY operational by the end of 2025.