Melissa Bailey Photo
Pastor Clarence Roberts popped in to visit a locked-up boy on Whalley —something he’ll have to travel to Bridgeport or Hartford to do if the state goes through with a new plan to shutter New Haven’s juvenile detention center.
Roberts (pictured), a pastor at Thomas Chapel in the Hill, visited the jail Friday in attempt to talk to a member of his parish who had gotten in trouble. Juveniles locked up on Whalley Avenue would be moved to Bridgeport and Hartford, and 13 state workers would lose their jobs, according to the plan.
The state judicial branch proposed closing the center as part of a budget plan released Friday in response to a directive to come up with $86 million in cuts over the next two years. (Read it here.)
The plan has other repercussions for New Haven, including the elimination of the following programs: A Community Mediation Program that “mediates minor criminal disputes for offenders” in New Haven state court; the Building Bridges program that provides 32 supportive housing beds for the homeless in New Haven and Hartford; a Community Services Office in New Haven that provides options to people who are sentenced to community service; a $27,105 mediation program in one New Haven high school. New Haven’s drug court would be eliminated. The New Haven state courthouses will take on all civil, family and housing cases from Meriden, while those courts will suffer from some of the 452 judicial branch layoffs statewide.
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, which is headquartered on East Rock’s Huntington Street, suffered eight layoffs as part of another wave of cuts announced by Gov. Dannel Malloy Friday. That agency employs 92 people statewide.
And weekend service between New Haven and Old Saybrook on the Shoreline East train line, inaugurated in July 2008, will be eliminated as of November 2011. Fares will also rise on that line by 15 percent.
Click here to read Christine Stuart’s report on the overall cuts coming down from the Capitol Friday in effort to fill a $1.6 billion gap that Gov. Malloy had planned to fill through a labor deal that state workers voted down. Read about other judicial cuts here.
New Haven Juvenile Detention Center at 239 Whalley Ave. houses an average of 20 to 24 kids, said Thomas Siconolfi, executive director of administrative services for the judicial branch, in an interview Friday. The adjacent juvenile courthouse and adult jail would remain open.
The proposed cuts now await approval from the legislature. If the legislature approves the budget plan, the juvenile detention center could close by Oct. 1, perhaps sooner, Siconolfi said.
The center is a “very short-term” facility, said William Carbone, executive director of the judicial branch’s Court Support Services Division. He said kids stay there an average of two weeks. Most of them are waiting for their criminal cases to be adjudicated in the adjacent juvenile court, he said. Many kids are sent there by a judge after violating the terms of their probation, Carbone said. They stay there until more suitable probation arrangements are made.
The state has three juvenile detention centers, in New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport. Siconolfi said the judicial branch didn’t want to close any of them — “we don’t think that’s a great idea,” he said. But given the directive to make cuts to close the state budget gap, Siconolfi said New Haven’s center made the most sense to close.
New Haven’s center is the smallest and oldest facility, Siconolfi said. The other two centers have room to absorb the New Haven’s detainees, as well as some workers, he said.
Closing the center would result in 13 layoffs, Siconolfi said. That doesn’t mean all the people who work at the New Haven site would lose their jobs, he cautioned — some will be transferred to Bridgeport or Hartford. Overall, the 13 people with the least seniority statewide would lose their jobs.
The closure would save the state $900,000 in operating costs such as building maintenance, food and medical services, as well as $550,000 in savings from the 13 layoffs.
Closing the center “should result in significant overtime savings, because, in addition to that center closing, the transfer of New Haven staff to the Bridgeport and Hartford centers should dramatically reduce overtime in those locations,” according to the budget plan.
Layoff notices won’t go out until after the legislature has approved, or modified, the judicial branch’s plan.
If the closure goes through, New Haven’s facility, which is attached to the court, would be “mothballed,” Siconolfi said.
That doesn’t mean it will be closed forever: Due to the new Raise the Age law, the state juvenile justice system is facing a growing population. According to that law, 16 year-olds started being treated as juveniles in January 2010, and 17-year-olds will be considered minors, too, starting in July 2012.
Based on “the unknown impact of 17-year-olds being part of the system,” the state may need to reopen Whalley Avenue’s detention center again.
Barbara Fair, a criminal justice activist, frowned on the closure.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for kids that live in New Haven, Hamden and North Haven to be sent to another city — that just separates them from their parents at a time when they’re going through a traumatic experience, being locked up,” she said.
Pastor Roberts agreed.
“It would be a hardship for the families that come here,” Roberts said, in addition to the “economic hardship” for those who will lose their jobs.
One facility would be cheapest.
How about moving the whole thing, so that the valuable land currently occupied by the state on Whalley Avenue can become something that actually produces tax revenue and an inviting streetscape that encourages people to walk (like stores, affordable housing, galleries, gardens and studios, instead of another "facility").