One of the 20 individual rooms in Building 4 of the Rhode Island Training School, in Cranston. Governor Carcieri wants to cap the number of incarcerated youths, a move intended to save millions of dollars.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

The boys and girls of the Rhode Island Training School have more in common than the address of the locked facility they share.

They often come from the same minority neighborhoods of Providence. Most are diagnosed with substance-abuse problems, have little or no high school education, and a family history of abuse or neglect. They have been convicted of crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to rape, but most are considered nonviolent offenders.

And now, the boys and girls of the Rhode Island Training School have entered the state political debate.

Governor Carcieri wants to cap the number of incarcerated youths, a move intended to save millions of dollars by sending dozens of troubled teens back home, or into outpatient programs across the state.

Judges, lawmakers, and other state officials criticize the plan, although most agree that some young offenders are better served outside of the locked juvenile detention center.

“I have no problem with releasing kids early if it’s appropriate. But releasing youths based on a number and financial considerations isn’t a good idea,” said Peter Slom, a unit manager at the Training School, who currently oversees roughly 90 boys. “I wouldn’t want them coming back to my neighborhood.”

The state is expected to open a new $61-million Training School complex in April large enough to hold 148 inmates — a number equal to the governor’s proposed cap. The average daily population of the facility has been 175 in recent months, although it has been closer to 200 over the last two decades.

About a third of those housed at the Cranston complex last month had been convicted of a violent crime, which includes assault, weapons possession and sexual assaults, according to data released by the Department of Children, Youth and Families following an open records request by The Journal.

Because the Training School population is constantly changing (the average stay is just six days), state officials could not immediately release a profile of all youth locked up last year. Instead, they collected data for 110 convicted boys in custody on Jan. 14, providing a detailed look at the type of inmates who may be released in the coming months. There were also 13 girls included in the study, although information wasn’t provided for another 38 boys held “in detention,” having not yet been charged with a crime.

Most do not have violent criminal histories.

Two-thirds of the male inmates were held for nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses, “crimes against property” and probation violations. They ranged in age from 11 to 21, although the average age was 17.

“The question you have to ask, of all the kids in the Training School that threaten public safety, are there better alternatives for them? I believe there are,” said House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, whose committee will debate the governor’s proposal in the coming weeks. “Right now, you have a system that pushes everybody into the highest end of security. From kids charged with truancy, to kids who are wayward, it would seem to be that the system should be working for the kid … and I’m not quite sure we’re there yet.”

Indeed, of those studied last month, nearly 40 percent of the boys had been at the Training School before, according to the DCYF data, although none of them had been charged only with truancy.

Another member of the House Finance Committee wasn’t as supportive of the governor’s plan.

“I think it would put a fear into the community,” said Rep. Thomas Slater, D-Providence, who has studied Training School issues closely in recent years. “If the kid is a violent kid, it’s not going to work. … Then they become a danger to the community.”

No one knows exactly how many young offenders would be released should the governor’s plan be accepted by the General Assembly and enforced by the court system.

Roughly 200 youths were held at the Training School on any given day over the last 20 years. Carcieri wants to cap the population at 148 boys as soon as next month. The plan would allow a private company to handle security for up to 12 girls.

In order to stay within the cap, the Training School superintendent would be required by law to ask the Family Court to release “those youth who do not pose a credible risk of harm to self or others” as soon as the population hits 140 males.

Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. opposes the governor’s plan, however.

“I don’t think we could ever agree to a cap because we never know what is coming before us,” he said in a recent interview.

For example, Jeremiah said, what if the Training School was at the capacity set by the governor and “I get a fellow who’s a gang member who committed a rape. … I’m not going to let him walk the street. That’s what they’re asking me to do, are they not? They’re saying, ‘We reached capacity, don’t send any more kids.’ I don’t understand how we can do that.”

And even if he wanted to divert people out of the facility, Jeremiah said there aren’t enough places for them to go.

“I would agree that there are children at the Training School that shouldn’t be there, but I can’t agree to a cap,” he said. “As I said to a youngster, I don’t get great pleasure sending you to the Training School. I’d rather see you succeed somewhere else, but I have no other place to put you.”

Indeed, the leaders of community-based programs acknowledge there probably isn’t enough space to accommodate many more people. Carcieri said he will invest in alternative programs to work with young offenders at their homes at a rate substantially cheaper than the average Training School bed, approximately $98,000 a year.

While DCYF officials have yet to release specific plans about where the youths would go, they cite programs such as Tides Family Services, which has contracts with DCYF to monitor approximately 90 troubled youths around Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls. Tides workers visit the teens at home as often as three times a day.

“There are young people that need to be locked up. No one is going to deny that. … I don’t think any of us want dangerous kids out there,” said Brother Michael Reis, the head of Tides Family Services. But he said his program offers a safe alternative for some.

Backed by state dollars, Tides hopes to upgrade its programs to include “respite services,” where frustrated parents can drop off their teens for the weekend, more comprehensive after-school programs, and counselors to ensure that school districts don’t improperly push troubled teens out of the public education system.

“It’s not like they’re out there and nobody knows what they’re doing,” Reis said of the youths in his program. “When they’re not cooperating, we have a system in place to send them [back to the Training School]. I think we can offer some reasonable assurances within the community.”

Data released about the Training School population reveals striking similarities.

Three out of four of the boys and girls locked up at the juvenile detention center have been diagnosed with substance-abuse problems. Almost half have a history of child abuse or neglect. And 4 in 10 have no high school credits, either because they failed all their classes or received no grades.

In addition, more than 45 percent of those jailed at the Training School the week of Jan. 14 were Providence residents. Pawtucket is next with 10 percent. And 63 percent of the youth offenders were either black or Hispanic.

“The reality is that it mirrors national trends in terms of juvenile corrections,” said Jorge Garcia, the associate director of DCYF, adding that urban families deal with higher poverty rates, more single-family households, less-educated parents, and parents more likely to be away from home.

Why are there so many more Providence youths locked up compared with other communities?

“I’m not saying the kids here are any worse than anywhere else. They have a lot more opportunities to get into trouble,” said Capt. Keith Tucker, the commanding officer in the Providence Police Department’s Youth Services Bureau.

Providence, with a population of about 175,000 residents, reported 1,517 youth offenses (some offenders were charged with multiple crimes) for 2006, the most recent annual data filed with the state Justice Commission. Barrington, the wealthy suburban community of about 16,000 people, by contrast, reported just 48.

Tucker dismissed the suggestion that Providence should have a juvenile hearing board to handle less serious crimes, as many communities do.

He said that his unit doesn’t send a youth to the Training School unless there is a threat to public safety. Following an arrest, the Providence Police return most young offenders to their parents or to an Urban League shelter if the parents cannot be found. If the police believe the Training School is appropriate (based on recommendations from the attorney general’s office), that decision must be approved by the Family Court; judges are on call 24 hours a day.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Burke Bryant, head of the advocacy organization Kids Count, said the time is right to implement the governor’s plan.

“Clearly the issues of the [state budget] are really driving this, but this is an opportunity to really make it work. It’s in the best interest of the kids,” she said. “The fundamental goal has to be the rehabilitation of these people.”Training school population

Boys: 110  Girls: 13

(Top five communities)

* Based on population during week

of Jan. 14)

speoples@projo.com