News

March 1, 2009

Lupas: Out-of-home residency last resort

In stark contrast from his predecessor, the new juvenile judge hopes to impose the least restrictive option for each case.

By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com
Luzerne County Reporter

Sending juvenile offenders to out-of-home placement will be a last resort for Luzerne County’s new juvenile judge David Lupas.

While some juveniles will need the specialized programs offered by outside facilities, Lupas said he has a legal obligation to impose the least restrictive option that fits each case.

Lupas also stresses that he is listening to all evidence and input before deciding the fate of young offenders. That includes a mandate that all juveniles without lawyers receive legal representation from the public defender’s office.

It’s a stark difference from his juvenile judge predecessor, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., who often ordered out-of-home placements and was accused of making decisions without accepting input from behavioral experts.

Ciavarella and decertified judge Michael Conahan are awaiting sentencing on their guilty pleas for accepting more than $2.6 million in kickbacks in exchange for decisions that led to the county’s use of privately owned detention/treatment centers in Pittston Township and western Pennsylvania.

Ciavarella ordered as many as 1,556 delinquency placements per year while presiding over juvenile court in recent years, according to a Times Leader analysis of placement statistics.

These placements were in a menu of more than 50 alternative treatment facilities, group homes, detention centers and both high security and less restrictive residential facilities.

Outside placements have decreased significantly since Lupas took over juvenile court from Ciavarella in May 2008, according to county officials. On Thursday, for example, there were 75 offenders in treatment facilities and four in detention.

“I have been witness to a steady decline in delinquent placements, and we hope that trend continues,” said county Children and Youth Director Frank Castano.

Detention use is down because there’s now more emphasis that it should be used only for the most serious cases, according to Lupas and county Probation Services Department managers Michael Vecchio and John Johnson.

In recent years, the county typically had about 17 juveniles in detention at any given time, but the average is now six, Johnson said.

Detention is the temporary lodging of juvenile offenders as they wait for a judge to determine their punishment and/or treatment. A judge decides whether the offenders remain home or are placed in detention facilities.

The probation officials said area police are receiving the message that they should request detention only if the offenders committed felony offenses, pose a safety threat or are in special circumstances that warrant immediate removal from their homes.

The probation department also is implementing a model Berks County assessment system that better weeds out which offenders merit detention placement. Increased use of electronic monitoring bracelets also is planned.

As far as treatment, experts and government officials are pushing for more home-based therapy programs for juveniles, and often for their families, in their own homes.

The premise is that juveniles may be more likely to get in trouble again if they’re banished to an outside facility, only to return to unchanged problems and relationships in their old environment.

Lupas and the probation department representatives say they wholeheartedly support that effort, though there aren’t enough local programs to meet demand.

Some help is on the way.

Luzerne County is among 16 counties chosen by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare to participate in a new initiative to reduce the number of youth housed outside their homes and increase in-home treatment.

The county was chosen in part because its juvenile placement rate exceeds the statewide average, state officials say.

The state’s goal is to decrease annual out-of-home placements by 20 percent – or 3,500 to 4,000 youth – by the end of 2010 for juvenile delinquency and dependency, said Richard Gold, deputy secretary of the welfare department’s Office of Children, Youth and Families.

Delinquency covers juveniles who get into trouble with the law, while dependency involves juveniles who face removal due to parental abuse and neglect.

The state is encouraging “functional family therapy” and “multisystemic therapy,” Gold said.

In the first, the entire family gets involved in figuring out the underlying causes for the delinquent’s offensive behavior and how to resolve problems as a unit.

Multisystemic therapy uses a series of proven behavioral health techniques to help juveniles deal with family, peers and others.

“These are services that have been designed and tested with longitudinal studies showing they’re more effective for delinquent kids than placement,” Gold said.

But no providers in Luzerne County are currently trained to offer multisystemic therapy, and county officials know of only one provider trained to offer functional family therapy – the Children’s Service Center of Wyoming Valley.

Both programs are copyrighted and require extensive training for agencies that want to practice them, said Joe DeVizia, director of the Luzerne County Office of Human Services.

Funding is another problem, Castano said.

Past revenue streams that would fund such intensive in-home therapies have dried up, so Castano is trying to tap Medical Assistance so county taxes wouldn’t be required.

A regional entity called HealthChoices oversees Medical Assistance funding for Luzerne and three other counties.

Castano said he is confident he will obtain approval to fund functional family therapy in Luzerne County, while Lackawanna County is pushing for the multisystemic therapy. HealthChoices would then monitor the results and determine whether to expand the therapies to the other counties.

Lupas said he and probation officials have also begun meeting with local providers to find programs that may benefit juvenile offenders and to encourage the providers to initiate new needed programs.

Experts say the treatment ordered by judges hinges on sound analysis of the juvenile by the probation department. Luzerne County’s probation department recently received approval to participate in a program sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to switch to a new model intake system. The model better assesses the underlying problems of each juvenile offender, Johnson said.

“This will give the judge a better picture of what treatment is appropriate,” Johnson said.

Lupas said he’s not making decisions in a vacuum.

“I make it a point to let everyone have a say,” Lupas said.

Juvenile judges in Pennsylvania are supposed to follow a concept called “balanced and restorative justice” when sentencing juveniles, said Melissa Sickmund, of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, a private, non-profit organization that pumps out research on juvenile justice issues.

“The model is looking to balance community protection, accountability to victims for harm caused and competency development, or fixing kids best as you can,” Sickmund said.

Judges should impose “the least severe sanction that makes sense,” she said.

“You still want to have that rehabilitation mindset, but if you don’t have to lock kids up, you shouldn’t for a lot of reasons,” she said, citing the cost and potential negative impact on youth.

Out-of-home placement will always be the best prescription for some youth, said Gold.

“We’ll never have a system where there will be no kids out of home, but these placements should be very time specific and goal specific,” Castano said.

Vecchio stressed that probation officers must evaluate offenders in facilities every 30 days to determine if the treatment is working and should be extended. Lupas said offenders in outside facilities also must appear before the court every six months for reevaluation.

“We don’t just send them away and throw away the key. We make sure the program is working,” Vecchio said.

If he’s on the fence about a particular case, Lupas said he is trying to keep youth local to give them a chance to rehabilitate without being sent far from home. He would reconsider if the juvenile violates probation or commits another offense.

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