Recently there has been situations at Woodland Hills Youth Development Center (further referred to as WHYDC) These involve students escaping by kicking out panels under windows and crawling under the perimeter fence. Then last night there was a riot that left multiple guards injured. Now of course in this day and age of internet and social media everyone has an opinion of how to fix the problems. Some people think that all students there are just thugs who need their butt kicked. Some people think that it is all the fault of the staff and guards. One person I saw even commented that these are children and could not possibly be dangerous. I am writing this to offer a perspective that few can offer. I spent a year behind those walls as a Security Officer.
I really don’t want to get into the blame game and just say who did what wrong. My desire is to state what I think needs to happen moving forward. There are two changes I see that need to be made. One is a physical change, the other is a shift in mentality.
The physical change I see that needs to be made is in the locks on the doors of the dorms. The students can open their doors at any time. I saw this lead to many issues. How can you keep someone contained when there is no lock on their door. This is one thing that struck me as odd from my first tour of the facility. Sometimes students would open their doors after lights out to be mischievous and throw wads of wet toilet paper at another student’s door. Sometimes a group would come out after lights out and trash their dorm. I was assaulted by a student that came out of his room after lights out, resulting in a microfracture in my shoulder that still causes pain. Then you have what happened this week, students escaping from the dorms, then from WHYDC all together. All of which could have been avoided if these students were not able to waltz out of their rooms whenever they please, with only the threat of disciplinary action to keep them in.
Now I get to what I feel needs to be a total overhaul of how WHYDC sees and runs itself. It is called a youth development center. I would say a generous estimate would be that one out of twenty students there actually want to better themselves and are receptive to the treatment and help available to them. I have no data on this, it is just my experience. If you have ever tried helping someone who doesn’t want your help, or doesn’t even have a clue why they need help, you know that it is impossible to help them. Many of the students there don’t see anything wrong with the life they have led and have no desire to change. A large portion of the ones that do obey the rules are only doing enough to get out, so their progress is lost as soon as they clear the gate. So in my mind WHYDC needs to stop kidding itself and stop trying to rehabilitate those who are refusing to be rehabilitated. It needs to embrace the image of juvenile detention. It needs to be more like real corrections environments. There are students that make repeat visits and spend much of their teens there. I saw one student come back a mere two weeks after completing his rehabilitation program. That is a fail.
I say help the ones that want to be helped. The ones who so not want to be helped and cause problems, treat them like the criminals they are, incarcerate them. Take away everything but school and recreation. Take away television, evening snack weekly commissary and all other perks. Make the experience equal to a students attitude. If a student shows improvement, improve their situation.
I’m not saying that I have all the answers, but these are the ways I see that the facility could improve. It would keep staff safer and saner.
Tmyers2's Blog 