A sign and fence at the Green Hill School for juvenile offenders, in Chehalis, Washington. (Photo by Jake Goldstein-Street/Washington State Standard)
Overcrowding at Washington’s biggest juvenile detention center has grown to crisis levels over the past year.
A slew of bills in Olympia look to chip away at the problem. Some measures set a cap that, when met, requires officials to transfer detainees to other facilities and give young people the option of moving to adult prisons. Others try to limit how many young people are incarcerated in the first place or provide pathways to early release.
As the population grew over the summer, the state Department of Children, Youth and Families temporarily suspended intakes at Green Hill and Echo Glen’s Children’s Center in Snoqualmie, the state’s medium and maximum security facilities for juvenile offenders.
Around the same time, the state agency transferred 43 young men from Green Hill School in Chehalis to an adult prison, a widely lambasted move that faced a judge’s rebuke and fueled calls for the firing of the department’s former secretary.
The saga spotlighted the overcrowding that has enveloped Green Hill since mid-2023. The facility has operated above what officials consider its safe capacity for a year and a half. Echo Glen has been hovering around its capacity for months.
The juvenile rehabilitation population concerns come in the wake of 2018 and 2019 laws known as JR to 25. The measures allowed young people sentenced in adult court for crimes committed before age 18 to spend their confinement in juvenile facilities until age 25.
Previously, they had to transfer to Department of Corrections custody on their 21st birthday.
This change stemmed from evolving science that showed young people’s brains aren’t fully developed until age 25. Because of this, federal and state judges have ruled juveniles and young adults should be treated differently for their crimes than older adults.
Officials hope a new facility, set to come online soon on the campus of one of the state’s adult prisons, could be a relief valve for the crowding, though it’s likely just one piece in a puzzle lawmakers are trying to solve.
State officials have emphasized the incarcerated youths moved to this added site will not have contact with adult prisoners or prison staff. But the idea of housing young people in a retrofitted prison has still drawn alarm from some.
University of Washington researcher Eric Trupin, who has worked with incarcerated youth for decades, likened the plan to putting “lipstick on a pig.”
Trupin said Washington was considered a national leader in treating juvenile offenders, but worries that progress has been undone.
Legislators have raised the idea of contracting with county juvenile detention facilities to ease the overcrowding. They’ve even pondered using the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Mason County, which could close by the end of this year.
“There is no simple answer,” said Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle.
On Monday, the Senate Human Services Committee is set to take up a few bills looking to address the juvenile rehabilitation crisis.
Repealing the JR to 25 policy is off the table for the Democrats in power.
‘Powder keg’
State lawmakers recently toured Green Hill and spoke with staff.
The takeaway for Republican Sen. Leonard Christian?
“Somebody’s going to die real soon, and it’s going to be on my shoulders for not doing everything I absolutely could,” he said, referring to risks for both staff and detainees. “That Green Hill School is literally a powder keg with the fuse already lit.”
Green Hill serves boys and men ages 17 to 25. Echo Glen houses girls and women ages 11 to 25, as well as boys from 11 to 17.
Echo Glen shouldn’t have more than 112 residents, according to the Department of Children, Youth and Families. Green Hill’s “safe operational capacity” is 180, while the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators recommends 150.
In 2022, the state shuttered a third facility, the Naselle Youth Camp in Pacific County, with leaders citing its remote location as a reason for the closure.
For months, Green Hill’s population has sat in the 230s and 240s. For young people held there, this means more time isolated in their rooms due to a lack of staff to supervise the programs that tend to make juvenile facilities more appealing than state prisons.
The juvenile justice council found “deplorable living conditions” at Green Hill during a July visit.
“These young men sleeping on the floor, confined to their cells for extensive periods, they’re crying out for counseling and not getting it,” said Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland. “It’s just further trauma.”
The Department of Children, Youth and Families only expects admissions to rise.
In Washington, reported juvenile arrests climbed from more than 6,200 in 2022 to over 7,700 in 2023, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
At the same time, the facility is seeing more young people with mental health or substance abuse needs.
With people packed together, fights in the facility have seen an uptick. Staff have also had to take more steps to keep contraband out amid a rise in drug-related medical emergencies. People have thrown footballs over the fence to get drugs inside Green Hill, officials have said.
Meanwhile, the state also operates eight minimum security facilities in communities across Washington that allow people to attend school and work. Those have capacity for 116 young people, with a population of 84 last month. But those facilities will likely never be full because some beds are reserved only for women or children.
Last year, the Department of Children, Youth and Families also launched Community Transition Services, a new program allowing young people to finish their sentences on electronic home monitoring. Six people have completed that program, as of last month. The state expects to slowly ramp up its capacity.
‘Not the time to throw up our hands’
On his way out of office, former Gov. Jay Inslee included $33 million in his final budget proposal to add a 48-bed juvenile detention facility next to Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen.
The Department of Children, Youth and Families plans to run the “Emerging Adults Leadership Program” there, a 6-month rotation for adults in juvenile detention who have a high school diploma or GED. While there, the young people would build skills, then return to Green Hill or be released from custody.
The agency already has the green light to open the facility once it has enough staff. That could be in March.
Goodman toured the planned facility recently. He wasn’t happy with it.
“I walked in and saw the little silver toilet and the little bed in the corner from a typical dehumanizing environment of an adult prison,” said Goodman, who led the charge for JR to 25.
“They assured me they’d put a carpet in there. That’s lovely,” he added sarcastically.
“This is not the time to throw up our hands and say ‘We don’t have any other options. What are we going to do?’” Goodman continued. “That’s what I’m hearing. That’s what I’m seeing.”
Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Auburn, is quick to note that while this facility would be on Department of Corrections property, the Department of Children, Youth and Families would run it, administering the rehabilitation programming that differentiates juvenile detention from prison.
“It is one solution,” said Wilson, chair of the Senate Human Services Committee. “It is not the solution, and it does not, in itself, take care of the overcrowding. It’s just one lever.”
“This is such an onion,” she added.
‘If you give kids hope’
Lawmakers are looking at a few other options to ease the crisis at Green Hill.
One measure sponsored by Christian, of Spokane Valley, aims to make it easier for people in juvenile custody to transfer to an adult state prison. More Green Hill residents have been asking about transferring recently.
Under current policy, transfers are allowed if staff find a safety risk with the person remaining at Green Hill or Echo Glen. And those in custody can already request transfers to Department of Corrections prisons. Senate Bill 5260 would require the Department of Children, Youth and Families to make that move within 10 days.
If passed, the legislation would take effect immediately.
Christian, the measure’s prime sponsor, expects getting it passed will be an uphill battle as he sees little support from Democrats.
“We force them to stay in this environment where they’re not happy, and they act out because they’re not happy and affect everybody else around them,” he said. “This should be like a no-brainer, but it’s not.”
Another measure would require the Department of Children, Youth and Families to transfer people to its community facilities once it hits 105% capacity so it can get back to 100%, with some exceptions. The agency would also transfer incarcerated young people to state prisons to hit that 100% benchmark.
The legislation, Senate Bill 5278, also allows more latitude for juvenile offenders to request moves to state prison.
And Wilson’s Senate Bill 5296 would require judges to find with “clear and convincing evidence” that youth need to serve time in a secure institution, as opposed to other options, at the time of sentencing.
All three bills are set for hearings Monday in the Senate Human Services Committee, with committee votes set for Wednesday.
Other measures aim to increase diversion programs to keep young people out of custody and give a watchdog office oversight of juvenile rehabilitation facilities.
Currently, complaints about issues in juvenile rehabilitation are handled internally.
“What I’ve heard from youth and parents is that this is completely inadequate because the youth is relying on the individuals that they have a grievance against to address their grievance,” Patrick Dowd, the head of the state Office of the Family and Children’s Ombuds, told the Department of Children, Youth and Families oversight board last month.
Senate Bill 5032 would expand the ombud’s responsibilities to include juvenile rehabilitation facilities.
Another piece of legislation sponsored by Frame, the vice chair of the human services committee, would allow offenders convicted before age 18 to petition for early release when they turn 24. It wouldn’t guarantee release, but get their cases in front of the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board for a decision.
The so-called Youth Hope Act won’t do much to address overcrowding, but could help with morale in the facilities, Frame said.
“If you give kids hope, they’re going to take their rehabilitation seriously faster,” she said.
The bill has passed out of committee and is set to be heard in Senate Ways & Means on Monday.
Legislators are also hopeful about the department’s new secretary, Tana Senn, a former state lawmaker who focused on child welfare and juvenile justice issues in the Legislature.
At an oversight board meeting last month, Senn said she wants to see solutions so fewer youth end up in the department’s detention facilities.