The Washington Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) plans to open a new medium security facility with up to 16 beds in unincorporated “urban” Pierce County to house young offenders with “severe mental health, behavioral health needs.”
In an interview Friday, a DCYF spokesperson said the department has identified a site and is working to finalize a lease agreement on the building.
The news comes after the state transferred 43 adult offenders out of Green Hill School and paused new entries into Green Hill and Echo Glen Children’s Center in Snoqualmie amid rising safety concerns and fears of overpopulation.
“This decision was not made lightly, but the security risks related to overcrowded facilities have made our current situation untenable,” DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter said in a statement Friday. “We have to prioritize the safety of young people and staff, and that it is safer for everyone when we have capacity levels that promote rehabilitation.”
According to DCYF, the transferred residents were all males over 21 with an adult sentence beyond their 25th birthday who would have eventually been transferred to the state Department of Corrections (DOC).
In an interview Friday, Allison Krutsinger, director of public affairs for DCYF, said the agency does not anticipate transferring additional residents out of either Echo Glen or Green Hill.
“We made this call to protect our staff, community and the young people we serve, and this was the most equitable way to do it,” Hunter said. “We considered all our options and had to take action to address unsustainable conditions on campus.”
Following the transfers, Green Hill currently houses around 200 residents, above the 180 considered “best practice” for the facility.
“We hope this will help. I don't think it's a secret. It has been a really challenging environment for the young people, for the staff,” Krutsinger said. “We do hope this will help provide some immediate sort of relief and help the environmental realities, staffing realities, in bringing more programming back online, etc. I would be hard-pressed to make guarantees or speak in absolutes, but we believe this was a necessary step to achieve that safe, therapeutic, rehabilitative environment.”
Resident transfer
As it paused new entries into Green Hill, DCYF announced that newly sentenced offenders would begin their sentences at county-operated facilities.
Citing the number of different databases, Krutsinger said the agency does not have firm numbers on how many offenders are now held in county facilities but estimated the department typically receives between three to five transfers from county facilities a week.
According to Krutsinger, the department has contracts with some counties to house inmates and is working to reach agreements with others for reimbursement.
“I want to note that I think one of the realities that is both true for DCYF and funding overall in the JR space is that the per cap rate or the or the daily bed rate, if you will, that we get from the state for care is not adequate to cover the expense, and has not been for some time,” Krutsinger said.
Over the past year, admissions into the facility have risen 60%, according to DCYF, which outpaced the department's population projections. Coupled with longer sentences and a rise in youth crime, Krutsinger said a series of factors have contributed to the facility’s overpopulation.
“I don’t think there's one root cause, and there are multiple factors in a very complex system, in a very complex moment,” she said.
Citing pay and a challenging work environment, Krutsinger said that staffing has also proven to be a challenge.
“We took some risk saying we're freezing intakes and making this move. It's not a precedent. It hasn't happened … in most recent memory,” Krutsinger said. “So I think staffing is definitely a challenge.”
New Facility
The new facility DCYF is considering in Pierce County will have up to 16 beds, which Krutsinger said would allow the department to move toward facilities that “can be more therapeutic in nature, in their environment.”
According to Krutsinger, the building is “owned by a private provider that no longer operates” though she did not have an estimated cost for the new facility.
“Let's be clear, all of these young people can benefit from a smaller footprint and smaller environments,” Krutsinger said. “But we really want to stand up a real intensive therapeutic behavioral health mental health like facility, because we are seeing that number increase as well within the population, those needs increase.”
The facility, she said, would differ from the Naselle Youth Camp in Pacific County, which Democrats in the Legislature opted to close in the 2022 session. When operational, the medium-security facility provided education and treatment for around 80 male offenders.
At the time, a spokesperson for Gov. Jay Inslee said the facility’s location made it “difficult and sometimes impossible to provide the full range of juvenile rehabilitation services that are necessary” for reentry after a sentence.
The facility’s remote location near the mouth of the Columbia River just outside of Naselle, coupled with the lack of transportation options, made it challenging to operate, according to Krutsinger.
“So one difference is this facility will be located in a more urban area that is accessible to communities and families,” Krutsigner said. “It'll also be smaller in its footprint and size. It will be one small campus, 16 beds max.”
Planning for the new facility began before the agency faced capacity constraints, according to DCYF spokesperson Nancy Gutierez.
“This was our us looking into this to help with that therapeutic, psychiatric help. So it's not necessarily a direct response to it,” Gutierez said. “It obviously contributes to lessening that population size, but that it just aligns at the same time with these needs as well.”
Changes to JR to 25
DCYF is eying changes to JR to 25, legislation that sought to reduce recidivism by allowing some offenders to serve their sentences in juvenile rehabilitation even after they become adults.
“We really want to be clear that we don't think JR to 25 is the wrong policy or the wrong law, and it needs to be resourced appropriately, both in physical footprint, recognizing realities of best practice capacities as well as programming and staffing so it can it can do what it is intended and designed to do,” Krutsinger said.
These amendments to the law, five years after it took effect, would focus on “what needs to exist in the law to ensure we don't end up in a situation where one of our facilities, given this reality, ends up in an unsafe situation in the future.”
Krutsinger said the department anticipates some funding requests that “are in line with smaller, medium security, flexible security facilities that can exist in a variety of communities.”
The department will also ask for additional funding for “mental health staff, mental health resources” and money for programming and educational opportunities.
Overcrowding at Green Hill School has been cited among the reasons for a rise in crime at the facility, which have included drug possession, assault and other felony charges.
The Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team served a warrant at the facility in 2023 and seized evidence that was being stored in lockers. State Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, called for a full investigation of the facility but was rebuffed by Inslee, who insisted many positive improvements were being pursued.
