WAUWATOSA – Milwaukee County has officially put the finishing touches on a multi-million dollar youth facility at the Vel R. Phillips Youth and Family Justice Center.
The opening of the new center, called the Milwaukee County Center for Youth, marks the continued coordinated effort to shut down he problem-addled Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls in northern Wisconsin and create regional facilities across the state for juvenile offenders.
In 2017, the passage of Act 185 aimed to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake by replacing them with smaller youth correctional facilities across the state. The current operation in the Lincoln County community Irma has long been criticized for reducing contact between youth and family members due to its 3½-hour drive from Milwaukee, where the majority of the youth come from.
The new regional facilities aim to provide a local alternative for incarcerated youth to remain closer to home.
“We are building a system rooted in accountability, rooted in growth, in healing and in hope,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said at the tour of the new center at Vel Phillips on March 5.
The total capital budget for the 32-bed facility is nearly $37 million, including more than $28 million in grant funding from the State of Wisconsin.
Since 2015, the cost to house young offenders in the state’s prison system has nearly tripled, with the daily rate jumping from $301 to $1,246 per child, according to a report from Milwaukee County from last year.
The aim is to reduce the financial burden on the county’s Children, Youth and Family Services by shifting to the new facility.
“We are taking steps toward making Milwaukee County the healthiest county in the state, because reducing recidivism isn’t just about lowering a statistic. It’s about breaking cycles,” said Crowley, a Democratic candidate for governor. “It’s about making sure that one mistake does not become a life sentence, whether you’re a young person or a young adult, but it’s also about being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
Here is what to know about the new facility:
Where is the facility?
The facility is part of an expansion to the Vel R. Phillips Youth and Family Justice Center campus located at 10201 W. Watertown Plank Rd. in Wauwatosa.
When will it open?
By the end of March, according to Kelly Pethke, who leads the county’s Department of Health and Human Services’ Children, Youth and Family Services division.
Who will be incarcerated there?
Youths who committed lower-level offenses will be housed at the new county-run facility. Pethke said that 14 youth are expected to be transferred into the facility. Those being transferred are currently part of the the Milwaukee County Accountability Program. She said that incarcerated youth at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake are not currently expected to be transferred into the center.
What care will the new center provide?
The new center will provide new educational spaces, including classrooms and vocational programming, dedicated medical, dental and mental wellness areas, indoor and outdoor recreation spaces, as well as new amenities such as family visitation areas and dining and culinary arts programming.
According to Pethke the center and its daily programming are based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a model that allows youth to build skills to manage emotions and find positive ways to build interpersonal relationships.
“The goal is to be able to serve kids here in Milwaukee in ways that support them, that support their families, that support their community,” DHHS Executive Director Shakita LaGrant-McClain said. “The opening of the Milwaukee County Center for Youth is advancing this goal, providing more effective and restorative approach to youth justice.”
Are other youth prisons set to open in Milwaukee or Wisconsin?
Yes. In 2020, Milwaukee, Brown, Racine and Dane counties were awarded funding to construct new county-run Secure Residential Care Centers for Children to to keep youth closer to home, family and community support systems.
In 2024, Wisconsin Department of Corrections began construction of a new state-run youth prison, also known as a Type 1 facility, on Milwaukee’s northwest side at in the Buchel Park neighborhood, at 7930 W. Clinton Ave. The facility will provide 32 beds for teenage boys who are in the adult system or who are considered serious juvenile offenders.
Construction of the new youth prison is on track to be completed in July, according to Assistant Administrator Lance Horozewski of Wisconsin Department of Corrections’ Division of Juvenile Corrections.
Youth from Lincoln Hills will be transferred to the facility starting in early November and it will be admitting newly incarcerated youth coming from the Milwaukee County courts, he said.
Horozewski said that the agency expects ground to be broken on another Type 1 facility for teenage girls in Dane County starting in August.
The state DOC is responsible for operating Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake School as well as the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Dane County.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about Milwaukee County’s new juvenile correctional center
Reporting by Vanessa Swales, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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