Milwaukee County officials are planning to build a new secured residential center on Milwaukee’s northwest side to house non-serious juvenile offenders when the state’s juvenile correctional facilities Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake close in 2021.
After reviewing nearly 40 site options, the county has narrowed down the possible new center location to 6101 W. Mill Road or 6600 N. Teutonia Ave. in the city’s Havenwoods neighborhood.
Act 185, which Gov. Scott Walker signed into law in 2018, mandates that Lake Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, located in Irma, will be closed by January 2021.
When those facilities shut down, the state Department of Corrections plans to open smaller “Type 1” juvenile correctional facilities for youth in the senior juvenile offender program, while counties will operate facilities for youth who have committed less-severe offenses.
Milwaukee County is preparing to submit a proposal to the state by March 31 to secure funding for its planned facility.
“We want to make the case that, since we have the majority of the youth in the facility currently, we should be viewed as the most in need (of the grant funding),” said Mary Jo Meyers, director of the Department of Health and Human Services for Milwaukee County.
The county estimates it needs about 5.5 acres for the new building. Meyers said it’s important that it is located near a bus stop to make it accessible for visiting family members. The remote location of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, both of which are more than a three-hour drive from Milwaukee, has been a common criticism of the state’s current juvenile justice system. About 65 percent of the youth currently at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake are from Milwaukee County.
“Imagine being placed in a facility three to four hours away from your home in a community that looks nothing like the community you came from and your parents that want to come see you don’t have the ability to come visit you or it’s a very long bus ride,” Meyers said. “The challenge of trying to have healthy programming and doing treatment with the entire family is compromised. Not to mention the trauma we’re learning about separation and isolation.”
Early on in the planning process for the new center, the county had considered renovating and expanding the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center, 10201 W. Watertown Plank Road, but determined it would cost more to renovate than to construct a new building, Meyers said.
The center will include education, rehabilitation and workforce training to integrate young people back into the community, Meyers said. It is expected to house about 40 youth at any given time.
Meyers said the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services Division of Youth & Family Services of have been working over the past seven years on juvenile justice reform to reduce the number of people entering the system and improve the outcomes for those who do, including reducing recidivism. The closure of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake provides an opportunity for Milwaukee County to build on those efforts, Meyers said.
“We are taking this opportunity to study best practices, to do site visits to places that are doing a much better job related to the health and well-being of youth and communities, and we’re going to take the best practices and look at what it should look like for Milwaukee,” she said.
It currently costs about $140,000 annually to house a child in a correctional facility, Meyers said. Meanwhile, 70 to 80 percent of youth are re-arrested after their release. Meyers said the county wants to offer a better approach to reduce recidivism.
“We know our future is dependent on the investment in our youth,” she said. “And we have some choices to make now about how we invest in our youth and what we can do to make sure that we have safer communities and lower the recidivism.”
