When riding long distances you get into a rhythm, put your head down, pedal forward and focus on the road ahead, often missing the landscape that surrounds you. So I know that it was serendipity that made me look up and notice the juvenile detention center I was passing as I trekked along US highway 190 in Louisiana. Something in me made me stop, turn around, drive through the parking lot to the front of the building, park my bike and push the speaker button. A guard on the other side wanted to know how she could help to which I replied that I wished to speak to one of the supervisors. She told me to hold on. A few minutes later the metal doors clicked open and a young man came out. He introduced himself as Steven and asked me what he could do for me. I imparted some details concerning the reason for my journey and asked if he would be willing to speak with me about the facility and the work he was involved in. Steve said he could give me a couple of minutes and told me to come inside. I said I was going to lock up my bike and he said, “No need, we have cameras everywhere. No one will touch your bike.” We went through the metal detectors and sat down in what was like a visitor waiting room.
(Photo caption: Tom Jarlock, MPA, Executive Director, in the white shirt and Steven Happel, Director of Administration, in red jersey.)
I took off my helmet and began to tell Steve about my ride's purpose, and in doing so I happened to mention Dr. Vincent Felitti and the ACE study, and that was that! Next thing I know I’m sitting in the conference room with Steve and the Executive Director of the Detention Center, Tom Jarlock, about to have a conversation that in itself has made this ride more than worth the effort.
After introducing myself and filling Tom in on why I had stopped and what I hoped to accomplish, our conversation began in earnest. Actually, it was not really a conversation but a lesson on leadership, courage, and vision that Tom imparted and I’m going to attempt to write down for you to read.
Tom and Steve have been to Chicago and have heard Dr. Felitti speak, actually getting the opportunity to spend time with him to ask questions and gather information. “The ACE study confirms a lot of what we experience and know already,” said Tom. He continued by informing me that at the center they see kids that have many risk factors and very few protective factors, and so for him it’s no surprise that they get caught up in criminal behavior. The center serves young boys and girls, and he said that the girls that they serve have almost all been sexually abused in some way. From his perspective -- a viewpoint supported by the ACE information -- it’s no surprise that the young girls have gotten caught up in criminal behavior as a result of their coping mechanisms.
What Dr. Felitti learned and what Tom paraphrased to me is that, “We see people's problems when what we are really seeing is their solutions.” Tom went on to say, “It hasn’t shaped or changed the way we do business, but it has given us additional understanding and insight.” He said, “We work with children, with adolescents. We’re a juvenile detention center, one of about 600 centers in the country. There are five centers in the country that use the cognitive behavioral process to work with kids and we are one of the five. Not the first, but probably the third or the fourth." He went on to tell me how they got to where they are. “When I came here this was a typical institution,” said Tom. It was your typical detention center where guards have ultimate authority and kids are moved from place to place, where forced is applied in overwhelming amounts to deal with most problems. This is a scenario that still holds true in most areas of the country.
Tom began to examine the detention center's operations. He began to ask questions: Why do we do this? Why do we do that? Can this be done differently? I have to stop and tell you that at some point I asked Tom what made him question the system, and I’m putting his answer much too simply, but it had something to do with his time as a Marine where he really took a concept taught by the Marine Corps -- “a belief in excellence” -- and made it a way of life for himself.
Tom found that the answer to his questions were not to be found in Louisiana at the time. “It wasn’t done differently anywhere in Louisiana so I started asking outside the state,” said Tom. "We found a place that was doing it differently when we went to Chicago to visit the DuPage Detention Center." This is a center that has been recognized by the National Juvenile Detention Association as a model program. They have all the residents in the detention center participate in an intense program geared to reduce their risk of re-offending. Principles of effective interventions with juveniles and concepts of Restorative Justice form the basis for their programming.
“We brought those principles home after spending a week up there learning their processes, came back and over a period of eighteen months we implemented the cognitive behavioral interventions model,” Tom recounted. In two years he said they lost 90% of the staff because many of them couldn’t make the transition from authoritarian to caregiver. They could not go from being guards to what he says they are now, “more like shepherds.” "We treat kids through the lens of, 'Are we removing dignity from them or are we caring for them?'" An example he gave was that in 2004 they didn’t have shower curtains because they had to watch the kids shower. Now they have shower curtains because, according to Tom, “Number one, we shouldn’t be looking at kids naked. Secondly, how do kids feel when they are viewed without their clothes? They feel awful about that. They’re unsure about their bodies, they’re experiencing a lot of change, they’re now thrust into an institution. Should they ever be seen naked? Our perspective is No! That is a huge dignity removal, so we don’t do that anymore. We don’t do strip searches for random events. We do them only if and when we have probable cause. We are very careful in how we train people on how to speak to kids as well. We don’t use derogatory terms. We don’t curse at kids. We don’t strike them. We don’t use chemical agents on kids. We are very cautious about every interaction and our main focus is not removing dignity. We do a lot of training on de-escalation of kids; therefore, we are very patient. Some people see that as coddling. We see that as giving kids ample opportunity to express themselves, which gives us the opportunity to resolve things without using force.” Tom told me that back in 2004, everyday they had a full hands-on violent restraint of a kid involving handcuffing or pepper spray. Now that happens maybe once a month.
Over the past ten years they have become focused on what they could do in becoming the very best in this industry, providing the very best services for kids even though nobody asked them to. It’s not been easy. For example, when Tom started making these changes, the judges where saying, “Well we don’t like that!”
Another example of dignity is that every kid would have their heads shaved when they came in. Judges really got a kick out of that! Tom came in and said, “I don’t feel good about that. Why do we do that? Why don’t we offer kids haircuts?” Tom had a judge call him and say, “Look, I want this kid's head shaved.” Tom said, “Your honor, put that in their order and I’ll go ahead and shave this kid's head.” He got a call saying, “The order's coming.” He said, “Great, waiting to see it.” The order came and it said, “Youth shall have hair cut.”
By 2005, they got a reputation for being too soft on kids, and in typical fashion, Tom responded by giving stuffed animal to kids upon intake. “You got a 14-year-old, 15-year-old kid, maybe a girl, first time away from home in jail, institutional environment, how does it feel? Feels awful! Feels awful. Did they do something bad? They did something that warranted them being detained. Does that mean we treat them like a criminal or thug? They’re a kid! They’re a recoverable resource that we want to help recover!”
He said that they have a laser-like focus on what they do and commented that it has spread somewhat. But he told me that I’d be surprised at how many people are not interested in the concept of specially practitioners in the field of juvenile detention. “You’ll hear, 'Oh yeah, we do some of that.' Sadly, it’s all talk and no action,” Tom said.
But here at this center, Tom has made sure that everyone works toward the importance of recovering this child resource, preserving the dignity of the kids that they serve, and training the people that come in as best they can. They start out by finding the right people to work in the juvenile detention industry. They want people who have an interest in doing things that don’t require chest-banging machismo, an “I’m going to go in there and kick some ass” kind of mentality. In this way, Tom thinks they’ve made a significant impact on the lives that they’ve touched--staff lives and the lives of the kids they interact with everyday.
“We want kids to leave here feeling better than when they came in," Tom said. "We want them to be reinforced as human beings, leaving here thinking, 'I got detained, but these people cared for me while I was here. They didn’t stomp on my chest. They didn’t feed me bad food. They didn’t taunt me for whatever reason--my sexuality, the crime I was alleged of having committed. They didn’t taunt me because I’m poor and came in only having one shoe. They didn’t taunt me because I live in a certain area. They respected me!'”
“You talk about adverse childhood events. Well detention is one of those and we focus on how to make that less of a risk factor,” said Tom. “If it can be done in Chicago, I knew it could be done here. In fact, it can be done anywhere you name a place: Los Angeles, any place in the country. All you need is the will and desire. It’s not done commonly because people don’t have to.”
Dr. David W. Roush, an expert in Juvenile Detention and Corrections, has told them that what they accomplished at this Florida Parishes Juvenile Detention Center in Covington, Louisiana, is the most dramatic change model that has been sustained over time of any detention center he’s experienced. Tom has been here for ten years and Steve is going on eight years. “Together with the staff we’ve carefully reinforced the purity of this model,” Tom said. “A pure soup that people can taste. It can be done in other places if the right team comes together. A doable thing that somebody can do if they have the will and desire to do it!”
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