The Real Repeat Offenders

By Mediator Matthew House, J.D.

When I read on February 1 that Joe Alvin Hix and Fred Gentle had escaped from juvenile detention, my first thought was that the justice system had not provided those boys the resources they needed. Two days later, now recaptured, these boys still do not have access to the rehabilitation that has been a juvenile court mandate since 1899. Surely, certain adults now owe an even heavier price for what has become a repeated failure to honor the juvenile court creed of treatment over punishment.

Where will Joe and Fred learn what they need to know? They didn’t learn it at home. They didn’t learn it on the run. Will they learn it at the detention center? I doubt it. Just the same, I challenge the Charlotte County juvenile authorities to show Joe and Fred why they looked or them and why they brought them back.

If the purpose is to punish them, how well did that work the first time? If the objective is to rehabilitate them, why wasn’t that happening before? If Charlotte County knows what is in its best interests, the good men and women who run the juvenile services will realize that treating rather than punishing Joe and Fred will not only honor the founding function of the juvenile court but will also promote the citizens’ safety and protect their finances.

I wonder how much it cost to search for those boys. I gather it ran into the thousands of dollars. What about the cost of juvenile detention in the first place, somewhere around an eye-popping $210,000 per year per youth. For that price, how much rehabilitation are those kids—and, by association, society—getting for that $575 daily cost when they’re locked in a cell for most of the day anyway?

There is a better way, and I have witnessed it. I volunteered at Latah County Youth Services for three years while I was a law student at the University of Idaho. At our daily study table, I saw grades spike and pride resurface as those teens realized the benefit of diligence. They were never shackled and, in groups of no more than four, were supervised by an attentive adult. That care for the individual kept those adolescents on the right track. I never had one of my kids reoffend and go to detention. We used rehabilitation and support because they work.

The false satisfaction of knowing juvenile offenders are behind bars gives the appearance of preserving public safety. To be sure, no one who is a danger to society should walk the streets. But the focus should not be on punishment but instead on the dual protection of the community and the offender who probably has a lot of hurts that no one would want as a bio.

Incarcerating kids for an arbitrary period is like staying home from work for the number of days it typically takes to recover from the flu. What happens in that span, not the time itself, determines whether the illness goes away. When juvenile judges lock up teens in facilities where rehabilitation is not the sole (not just primary, but sole) function, merely being in detention accomplishes nothing except further hardening those adolescents toward a society they have already decided has neglected their needs.

Charlotte County needs a gigantic wake-up call. If the authorities don’t tune in that they have failed even to try to support and treat Joe, Fred, and countless others like them proactively, this will not be the last time they must spring into reactive panic mode to chase down an inadequately rehabilitated teen.


Matthew M. House, J.D. is a divorce mediator and teen advocate in Portland, Oregon. He is a frequent divorce and family law expert guest on television and radio nationwide.

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