by John Luciew
“You’re taking me down?” Adrianne asks, excitedly. “Good, I can talk to you.”
A court hearing all about her and a chance to have “Ms. Brock” all to herself. Adrienne is living large at Schaffner.
“To have to come before a judge and to have their parents there, that’s something to them,” says director Hooke, who’s seen this type of reaction before. “A lot of kids do something because they want attention. It might be negative attention, but it’s some kind of attention.”
An orderly classroom
The marker board in front of the room looks like that found in most any school classroom. It lists the teacher’s name, Mr. Jones. There are a few math problems. There is one rule: “No Talking.”
And then there’s this reminder: “Detention Hearings Today.”
This is school Schaffner style.
Oh, there’s also a 250-pound man standing watch in this particular classroom as the teacher goes over instructions for a math worksheet. They count out the pencils -- students aren’t allowed to carry them around. The writing implements are collected after each class.
This is B pod going to school. It’s all boys 14 and up. In this class, the oldest is 17. This is supposedly a collection of some of the county’s worst juveniles. Yet, the order in this classroom rivals that of any advanced placement school in the county.
Just ask teacher Ron Jones, one of four Central Dauphin School District instructors who provide education at Schaffner during the regular school year.
“I do like it,” Jones said. “I’ve had opportunities to leave, but I prefer to stay.”
It all goes back to the rules.
From Day One at Schaffner, it’s pounded home that not following the rules can be hazardous to your freedom. If detainees don’t follow the rules at school or in society, they end up in Schaffner. If they don’t follow the rules there, they wind up in their rooms, staring at four very close walls.
Later, if they don’t follow the rules of probation, or of the treatment center where they’re sent, they end up back at Schaffner. And the cycle begins anew.
Rhonda, the rule-breaking hairstylist, doesn’t like to follow orders. She’s managed to turn a single misdemeanor charge into two years of bouncing around Schaffner center and any number of residential placements.
Each time, she’s been branded with three letters: FTA. That means Failure To Adjust, and it’s the reason she’s back here at Schaffner for her second go-round.
It’s not uncommon. Most of Schaffner residents have been there before. They are repeaters, either back on new charges, for violating probation or for failure to adjust at another placement.
“Once you get in the system and on probation, it’s hard for people to get out,” said case manager Myers, who sees many of the same kids come back again and again. “Kids grow up in here. We have a lot of kids grow up in here.”
Rhonda is a Schaffner veteran. She knows the system and has bent more than one rule to the breaking point.
She has managed to get her own shower soap and bottle of shampoo, while the others have to share. She claimed allergies and dandruff to get these special supplies.
During her three-week stay, Rhonda has generally made life miserable for the pod masters, who roll their eyes at each new demand. But the staff has one on her this time.
Word has quickly spread that Rhonda is being shipped out first thing the next morning to a maximum security juvenile facility, where failure to adjust will mean that she’ll be locked down in her cell. It seems everyone on the staff is delighting in this information. Rhonda doesn’t know about it yet.
The honor of informing her will go to Rob Monzon, the pod master who’s had to put up with her antics for the last few weeks. He’ll break it to her in the morning to minimize the fallout.
Soon, Rhonda will be someone else’s problem, and the rules will have won in the end.
After all, the rules are the only thing Schaffner has.
UPDATE: After several management shake-ups at Schaffner Center to reduce costs, Dauphin County is considering closing the facility and laying off up to 70 workers due to budget constraints. The county’s juveniles would be shipped to a similar facility in neighboring Lancaster County under an arrangement that could save more than $1 million annually, despite higher transportation costs. A final decision is due in early fall, 2010.
ON PROBATION
Stephen Bishop recognizes the tall boy on the bicycle. He swings the county-issue car to the side of the city street and calls to the boy.
“Yo!”
The boy shakes his head in disgust. Head down, he leaves his friends and walks his bike over to the car.
What occurs next counts as an “official contact” by the Dauphin County Juvenile Probation Department.
Bishop, the officer, plays “20 Questions” with the boy, who is on probation for fighting at school or stealing something. Bishop can’t remember right off.
“How’s your report card gonna look?” Bishop quizes the sulking boy.
“Incompletes,” he mutters. “I didn’t take no tests.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t ready for the tests.”
Bishop has no independent way of verifying how well the boy is doing at Harrisburg High School. He doesn’t know whether the youth has been showing up for classes, in trouble, or suspended.
Bishop used to know all of this and more when he, along with eight other county officers, was based in the city schools. The school district asked them to leave in June, ending the in-school program begun in 1994. As a result of that request and a dispute over the officers carrying guns, they no longer have visitation rights at city schools.
Outside of Harrisburg, the world of juvenile probation is mostly orderly. It is set in suburban public schools, where officers see their probationers on a daily basis, get routine feedback from teachers and know immediately if there is trouble.
But the world of juvenile probation in Harrisburg is set in the streets, where the nine county officers have to be savvy night owls to keep track of 250 youths on probation.
Their office is an oft-abused county car. They stay out until 2 or 3 a.m. They make some in-home appointments with their charges and the youths’ families, but mostly it’s catch as catch can.
“That’s how we see the kids now,” says Cindy Glass, a 20-year veteran of juvenile probation who is in charge of the city unit.
At least Bishop won’t have to chase after the boy on the bike for a while.
The officer places the boy under house arrest after learning, through another series of questions, that the boy was fired from his minimum wage job at a sub shop.
“This gets better all the time,” Bishop sarcastically says.
Bishop already was miffed that the boy’s name showed up on a fresh police report. The youth allegedly egged on some friends to steal another kid’s bike -- while the kid was still sitting on it.
It is a beautiful Friday afternoon, the start of what will be a gorgeous Halloween weekend in Harrisburg. The boy will spend it inside his row home.
To make sure, Bishop approaches the boy’s home later that night. The house is dark. He knocks and rings the bell. He always does both in case the bell isn’t working.
For a long time, there is no answer. Then the door opens. The boy is at the door holding a portable phone. He sees his probation officer and gets rid of the call.
Bishop enters the neatly decorated and immaculate home for more talk. After the day’s revelations, the officer has reached a conclusion. He tells the boy he “was this close” to getting off probation, but not now. Too many slips at school and his job. And then that police report. The boy will be back on electronic monitoring. A device will be strapped to his ankle and the county will know when he is home and when he is not.
“I was ready to let you go,” Bishop says. “You have no one to put the blame on but yourself.”
“It’s the system,” the boy says.
“You seem
to like it,” Bishop retorts.
By the way, the probation officer adds, it will be $3 a day for the electronic monitoring. So get ready with the money.
It’s the system.
PEOPLE OF THE NIGHT
Stephen Bishop, Cindy Glass, Chad Libby, Jennifer Ainscough, Charles Johnson and the rest of the city-based probation officers are people of the night.
Working in pairs -- always in pairs when they are on the streets -- they drive through some of the worst neighborhoods of Harrisburg, places and streets into which no person would venture without a reason.
They take their time. They drive slowly. They eyeball the young faces, seeing who they know. They point at a group huddled on the corner. Maybe some of the youths are smoking something, maybe holding something, maybe selling something.
On this night, Libby and Glass are paired up. They have names on a list, and if they see a face that goes with one of those names, they pounce. If their prey is one of the ones on the corner, they will call his name and he will have to walk over to them. If he runs, they will chase him. The officers will know by the attempt to run that he is in some kind of trouble and they will have to find out what.
The kids are on the lookout, too -- for the officers. When they see one, they shout “Five-O! Five-O!” and try to disappear.
But if you’re on probation and an officer has eyeballed you, there is not much you can do. You must stand there and wait.
The officers will ask for permission to pat you down. Then they’ll start with the questions, delivering them with their best street talk. All the youths can do is give them some shrugs and some mumbles. Say “alright” a couple of times and hope it’s over soon. It can be embarrassing.
Until this past August, Libby, Glass and the other officers did their jobs without weapons. They carried mace but no guns. Now they wear 9 mm handguns over their bulletproof vests.
The guns, which the county juvenile probation department issues to all of its officers, caused controversy because some officers would be wearing them into schools. But it was with these streets, and others like them, in mind that the weapons were issued.
When you’re out in the neighborhoods at night, anything can happen. Many a drug dealer has waltzed up to the county vehicle and offered to sell its occupants an array of non-pharmaceutical narcotics.
As long as the seller isn't on probation, there is not much the officers can do. County probation officers have no jurisdiction over people who are not on probation. The most they can say is a firm “no” and tell the guy to get lost.
It makes for another good story, though, like the time a seller became rattled when one of the probation officers flashed a badge that he dropped the crack vials into the front seat of the car.
The probation officers see a lot of things out there in the streets at night.
They see how the mother crumbles and cries when they tell her they have to take her 14-year-old to Schaffner Youth Center, the county detention facility. The boy just isn’t obeying the rules on probation. And she hasn’t been as tough as she needs to be to enforce the rules. That’s what the officers tell the sobbing woman.
Sometimes a parent giving a youngster a break, giving in to him and not standing up, is hurting him more. Sometimes a kid needs you to stand up. The probation officers tell the woman this. But she says she doesn’t know about that. She just knows her son will be sleeping at Schaffner. The house will be empty, and she will be alone.
“We gotta get you strong,” the officer says. “You got to be strong for your boy. Your not doin’ him any favors lettin’ him get away with stuff.”
The mother cries harder.
Some of the homes the officers visit are modest, but clean and well-kept. They are warm places, with soft carpeting and pretty things on the coffee table.
But some of the places are like nightmares. Roaches go about their business without having to worry about scattering and hiding. They crawl on the walls, the couches, the tables, the counters, the toilets and the refrigerator.
Lift up a chair cushion in the living room, as the probation officers must do sometimes when they’re conducting a search, and you might see a plate with crumbs on it. Sometimes, there is a chicken bone way down in the crack of the couch, or leftovers underneath it.
The smell is bad, too. And there is something about seeing such things and smelling such smells that makes a person itch for no reason.
When the officers leave a place like that, they want a shower. They want a shower even though they stood in the middle of the room and didn’t sit on anything. They want one even though they put on gloves -- leather ones -- when they had to go rooting through in the house.
But there’s no time. It’s off to the next house. Will it be a nice one with pretty things on the coffee table? Or will it be one with arrogant, unafraid roaches?
GROWING UP FAST
Inside the Dauphin Street rowhome, there is an empty crib and a depressed father. He is 16.
It is well past midnight, but his probation officers, Libby and Glass, have come to check on him.
The boy has had to grow up fast. Two years ago, when he was 14 and dealing drugs, he got shot. The injury still bothers him. He says it’s the reason he didn’t go to school this day.
“My butt hurt,” he tells the officers. “I got shot in my butt, remember? My butt still hurts.”
His mother, who has come downstairs from her bedroom to talk to the officers, shakes her head. Her son hasn’t been to school much, she reveals.
The boy even devised an elaborate scheme to switch identities with his best friend and fool his teachers -- the friend would sit in the boy’s classes, pretending to be him. Teachers didn’t know the difference. The plan was a good one until Mom showed up at school and promptly informed a teacher: “This ain’t my son.”
Mom has been covering for her boy, saying he has been making his curfews when he has not. But no more, she says. He’s slipping away, and she is worried. He is talking about quitting school. He is concentrating on his minimum-wage job, which he works conscientiously so he can buy diapers for his new daughter.
Mom is near tears. She is ready to give up on her boy. She can’t take his temper any more and the hurtful words he slings at her. She tells him she’s the only woman in this world who cares about him.
But she says she is ready to let the system swallow him up, to let the officers take him to detention and then to some kind of placement where he will be far from home. At least then, she will be able to live in her house without the nasty words, the words that wound her so deeply.
“It’s verbal abuse,” the mother declares.
But the 16-year-old father says he feels trapped. He is trying to do his best for his daughter. But he can’t see the sweet baby girl when he wants to. The crib in the living room is empty.
The baby is with his equally young and teetering girlfriend. She is 15 and on probation, too. She soon may go to Schaffner for not adjusting on probation. What will happen to the baby, the boy wants to know.
The two probation officers, who came in from the night, stare at him blankly. The boy sits on the couch and raises both hands to his face. There are no answers.
The probation officers go into coaching mode.
“You can’t quit school,” Libby says. “Think of your baby. What kind of father can you be if you quit school? What kind of job could you get to provide for your little girl?”
“I get for her,” the boy says, cracking with emotion. “I get her the Pampers and the bottles and stuff she needs. I get for her.”
“You have to go to school,” the officer says again.
The officers decide they will sign the boy up for a parenting class. Later, they declare that this boy still has a fine heart. They comment on how rare it is for a teen dad to want so badly to be a real father to his child. They are impressed with this boy, and they want to help him.
In Dauphin County, most probationers are in trouble for one or more of the following:
burglary, robbery, aggravated assault, possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia, or possession with intent to deliver.
But it’s never quite that simple. Robbery could be one kid forcibly taking a bicycle from another. Aggravated assault could be going a few rounds with Mom or Dad or a brother or a sister. It could be fighting at school or shoving a teacher.
One girl kept getting arrested for stealing food. She wasn’t getting enough to eat at home.
Other youths get into fights at school because they are angry over being teased about their clothes. They don’t have the money for the designer labels, and the other kids won’t let them forget it. In the cold of winter, some kids will go to school without coats. It happens every year, and the probation officers see it.
Many times, there is a pattern to probation. Glass supervises twin girls on probation. Sometimes, three or four brothers are on, all at the same time. Sometimes, the father or the mother is on adult probation, or even in prison, and their children are following in their footsteps in the juvenile system.
“Drugs. The majority of it is drugs,” Libby says. “They got low self-esteem. There are family issues, too -- emotional abuse and neglect.”
The probation officers don’t see the kids as a list of criminal charges. Many of them cannot even remember why one child or another is on probation. What the youngsters are, the officers will tell you, are sets of problems to be solved.
So many problems.
EMPTY SEX
“This is a young girl who likes old men,” Cindy Glass says. She and her partner, along with two other teams of officers, drive toward an address where they think the 16-year-old female will be.