Juvenile Detention the Paul T.

Juvenile Detention

The Paul T. Leahy Detention Center operates under the auspices of the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services. The facility is located in Worcester, the second largest city in the Commonwealth. The unassuming brick building is not far from the campus of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

A visitor to the center walks up to a green door and presses a button for admission. There is a second, windowed door where the visitors shows identification and states the purpose of the visit. After receiving a visitor's badge, one is escorted to the unit and is buzzed through two more locked doors.

Upon entering the unit, one might be surprised at how cheerful it is. On each side of the hallway, there are large murals. One is an oceanside scene, with a lighthouse, sandy beach and seagulls flying in a clear blue sky. The other mural features a nostalgic village scene, with neat houses and small shops and businesses. On the left side of the hall as one enters, there are three clinical offices and an office for an administrative assistant. On the right side of the hall, there are four classrooms, each of which has a teacher inside with three to seven students. A staff member sits in the doorway of each classroom, facing the students. There is an extra supervisor present in the hallway and an extra staff member monitoring the visitor.

The visitor must be buzzed through to the residential area, located at the other end of the hall. There is a library/recreation area and a servery for meals. Meals are cooked in a separate area and transported onto the unit. The recreation area has several television gaming systems. There is a pool table that can be wheeled in and out, depending on how the space is needed. The space is used for recreation and also for group meetings and presentations. Each of the small rooms has a set of bunkbeds, although youths are initially housed individually. There are five private bathrooms with showers.

The detained youths are male ranging in age from thirteen to eighteen. They have not been adjudicated but have been ordered detained by the court for anywhere between fourteen and thirty days. Most boys stay fourteen days or less. Some are held while they are waiting for a bed in a treatment center. Some boys are bailed out by their parents and in other cases they are released by the judge. It depends on several factors, including the age of the offender, the level of crime, and whether it is a first or repeat offense. Eighty percent of cases do not go to trial; attorneys are usually able to work out a plea deal.

Offenses range from relatively minor, such as shoplifting, to felony offences such as home invasion, rape and even murder. Every youth is screened before coming to the unit. Low-level offenders who are non-violent, who are not sex offenders, who are not fire-setters, and not considered a flight risk are placed in foster homes. The boys can refuse to go to a foster home and come to the detention facility instead. Placement in a foster home is part of the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI), designed to keep low-level offenders out of situations where they will be housed, and presumably influenced by, more serious offenders.