Public Safety & Behavioral Health Services and Support for Youth (Joint Oversight Roundtable)

Testimony of Penelope Spain

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Open City Advocates

Good afternoon, Councilmembers. My name is Penelope Spain. I am a resident of Ward 4, mother to two children being educated in our public schools, and for the past 18 years have served as CEO of Open City Advocates, which provides legal representation and holistic advocacy to youth who have been committed to DYRS.

Over the nearly two decades that I have been defending young people in the deep end of DC’s juvenile justice system, there have been dark periods where DC’s youth jail was one of the worst in the country - where daily assaults resulted in blood and tears, and every corner was thick with despair, fear, and filth. And there have been promising periods where there was a sense of collective urgency, collaboration, and dedication to implement the best practices available and to innovate together to meet the unique needs of DC’s children and families. There was an emphasis on sunlight, fresh air, recreation, and community gatherings. Sadly, we are quickly spiraling down into another dark period - we adults point fingers, huddle in our respective silos, and resort to failed tough-on-crime tactics instead of encircling our children and their caregivers with love and support. But some of us have learned some lessons over the years. We want to share those lessons and be a part of pulling us back towards times of hope, light, and collective action.

In 2009, the notorious Oak Hill was shuttered and New Beginnings opened. Transitioning from a 180-bed facility to a 60-bed facility required a significant investment in community-based services – an investment of financial resources, community building, and leadership. The initiative was called DC YouthLink. DC YouthLink certainly had its problems, which I can share at another time, but the best part about it was that service providers and government partners regularly sat around the same table to learn, troubleshoot, and innovate. (It was around one of those tables, in fact, that I first met Councilmember White!)

The best part of the DC YouthLink model is precisely what seems to be missing in our current haphazard, disjointed efforts to address youth crime. Through DC YouthLink, dozens of providers knew one another and the services available, regularly made cross referrals and warm handoffs, and any and all court-involved youth was everyone’s concern. Contracts allowed for collaboration, service plans actually addressed needs, and robust flex funds helped fill the gaps. Youth were given stipends for reaching milestones and achievements. And families regularly gathered for special trips where they and their children were treated as valued members of our community worthy of celebration.

So as we work to address the current state of youth violence in DC, I urge Council, the Mayor, and all government leaders to employ the approach we began to build back then. It requires leadership that believes in building up our youth instead of locking them up, robust and flexible financial investments, and the very hard work of collaboration. All three of those seem to be missing at present.

Testimony of Rondell Jordan

Community Defender, Open City Advocates

Good afternoon. My name is Rondell Jordan, and I am a resident of Ward 2 and Community Defender for Open City Advocates, which provides legal representation and holistic advocacy to youth who have been committed to DYRS.

At the outset, I reject the premise that there is ANYTHING wrong with Black children and youth in the District of Columbia, or anywhere else for that matter. My clients, our kids, are brilliant and they learn quickly. I speak today to share their first lessons.

Lesson one – I am not safe and no one is coming to help me. All of my clients were born in communities that have never known a time without violence. They do not recall the enacting of any emergency legislation to address violence when it was limited to their communities. They learn to distrust law enforcement once they realize that living in over policed neighborhoods counterintuitively, makes them feel under protected.

Lesson two – f— school. DC’s schools are failing our Black youth and it has been that way for decades. Our young people know this. Much like the adults that complain about kids who chose not to attend schools where they would not, and do not, send their own children. All of my clients have individualized education programs, or IEPs. In theory, these IEPs are meant to ensure that children with learning disabilities receive the educational support and services that they need. In practice, they are three scarlet letters that stigmatize and discourage my clients from engaging in necessary educational support services.

Lesson three – There is no hope. This lesson is the most dangerous because it precipitates the public safety issues that bring us here today. Court involved youth need the same, if not more, resources and support that non-court involved youth have.

Testimony of Joshua Miller

Research & Advocacy Director, Open City Advocates

To The Honorable Members of the Council of the District of Columbia,

Good afternoon. My name is Joshua Miller, I am a resident of Ward 4 and Research & Advocacy Director for Open City Advocates, which provides legal representation and holistic advocacy to youth who have been committed to DYRS. Before that I was the Director of Education for Georgetown University’s college in prison programs and the Managing Director for the Georgetown Pivot Program which provides entrepreneurship and business leadership training for returning citizens.

I have been working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people for more than a decade in both DC and Maryland. During that time, DC has had one of the highest incarceration rates in the US–and thus one of the highest rates in the world. Not only do we incarcerate excessively, we simply don’t treat people in secure congregate settings well. Anyone who works in these systems recognizes urgent needs for reform. For instance, the US Marshals conducted surprise inspections at the DC Jail’s CDF facility in 2021 and found that the facility “did not meet the minimum standards of confinement”–in the midst of the pandemic, staff shut off the water for days, served hot meals cold and congealed, ignored injuries, and antagonized residents.

Nothing about those conditions surprised my students at the adjoining CTF facility–the surprise was that suddenly the federal government was paying attention. A year before, a DC District Court judge found that conditions at the start of the pandemic were dire and likely included “deliberate indifference” to incarcerated residents’ health. Two decades ago we shut down our prison at Lorton because the conditions had grown so overwhelmingly bad that it was necessary to outsource long-term incarceration of our neighbors to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The litany of our failures in incarceration is unrelentingly long. The Jerry M. lawsuit found similar problems in juvenile facilities here in the District, and led to a comprehensive settlement and work plan for improvement that was to be overseen by the Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight. Yet just last week we learned that one of the key provisions of that work plan was going to be violated: it required that the Youth Services Center cap residents at no more than 88 except for brief stints at 96. Now we have learned that YSC has built ten new beds, bringing its capacity to 98–above the required limit–just as the OIJJFO was preparing to wind down its work.

Ongoing oversight is needed. The courts can provide slow, costly oversight through class action lawsuits. Federal agencies will occasionally do the same, again at great cost to the District, though only when prompted by insurrectionist complaints it seems.

Our failures have been systematic and pervasive, but the pandemic brought some of them to light, while creating increased pressure and stress for those working in these facilities that has led to chronic staffing shortages and further reductions in morale. The Mayor’s recently declared juvenile crime emergency will make it easier for DC to contract with secure out-of-state facilities, where our young people will be housed far from home and from DC government’s oversight. At Open City Advocates, we have learned to be skeptical of these facilities. Conditions are often not what was promised, programs are often lacking, and staff are frequently underqualified. Other states view our children with fear and suspicion, and treat them as second-class citizens, less-than worthy and more-than dangerous. Assaults on our kids are ignored or even swept under the rug, and our clients must often accept this out of fear of reprisal. So I would caution that we ought not to outsource the care and rehabilitation of our young people as we have done to our adults.

We are currently caught in another of our periodic spirals of rising crime, overcrowded facilities, and acknowledged abuse. Yet we have the ability to manage young people committed to DYRS in the community, providing rehabilitative and therapeutic services in the least restrictive environment. DC has had excellent reentry resources in the past decade, and we have a network of Core Service Agencies that could and should be directly engaged in this work. Yet we see little evidence that DYRS draws on the full breadth of available services. Our clients are refused admission to the Psychiatric Institute of Washington because of DC’s failure to update contracts, there are six to nine-month waiting lists at the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing, and our clients are rarely effectively linked to Core Service Agencies (by DYRS) despite the fact that these organizations are funded by local and federal budgets to provide the exact services they often need. What’s more, our clients frequently feel unsafe at school, at home, or in transit between them.

As always, this requires intention, coordination, funding, and oversight. And this is exactly where the DC Council can shine. Agency directors, administrators, and deputy mayors are all appointed and serve the executive branch. They speak with one voice. What is needed for true accountability is independent, cross-cutting oversight. Advocate organizations like OCA can provide some insight of both individual cases and conditions of confinement, but if we are ever to escape the cycle of abuse, investigation, and outsourced responsibility, the Council must shoulder an ongoing oversight role, and avoid overwhelming the system with a flood of newly incarcerated children.

As you begin thinking about the next budget season, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the American Rescue Plan Act’s funding at OVSJG, which has gone a long way to supporting my former students’ and our current clients’ reentry success, has ended. Unless Council replaces that funding, we will experience a massive decrease in services to returning citizens in the District. I have personally witnessed homeless returning citizens get good jobs and secure stable housing repeatedly with the help of these funds. It’s predictable that this loss of support will generate a new wave of poverty and crime.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

OCA’s recommendations:

1. Increased community-based treatment in the least restrictive setting: home, independent living, or group homes.
2. Replacements for funding from the American Rescue Plan Act at OVSJG to support reentry.
3. Block grants to encourage community-based provision of care from local, culturally competent providers.
4. Increased reliance and oversight of Core Service Agencies for community-based services.
5. Collective Impact model for data sharing and collaborative goal setting and mutual accountability between community-based providers and government agencies.
6. Adequate staffing for all facilities to allow provision of services at YSC and New Beginnings.
7. Restrictions on the usage of out-of-state treatment facilities that lack adequate oversight or accreditation, while prioritizing proximity to family and community supports.
8. Increased oversight of conditions in DYRS facilities by independent and legislative branch-accountable officers and agencies, akin to Congressional oversight of executive branch agencies through the Government Accountability Office.
9. Expanded funding for violence interrupters and credible messengers whenever possible.
10. 911 alternative response with nurse practitioner call-taking and social worker co-response.
11. Increased training in de-escalation and mediation techniques for everyone who works with youth.
12. Building mediation and conflict resolution cultures in schools, DYRS facilities, and corrections.
13. Adoption of graduated sanctions models for supervisory and rehabilitative discipline.
14. Use of focused deterrence “pulling levers” policing models, with a particular emphasis on the High Point, NC model of dynamic concentration of groups, crimes, or areas of concern, like particular housing blocks or carjacking.
15. Rededicate concentrated service provision to programs like the ONSE “People of Promise” or DC YouthLink model and other concentric circles of young people and adults most likely to be involved in violence and crime as victims or perpetrators.
16. Adoption of the DC Criminal Code Revision Act whenever areas of the criminal code are being reconsidered.
17. Wrangle accountability with federally-funded and responsive agencies like Court Social Services, CSOSA, the US Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.