Ruling on juveniles vexes jail

By KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer
8/25/2007

The sheriff says the different treatment of youths will stretch resources.

An Oklahoma attorney general's opinion has the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office scrambling to find appropriate accommodations for juveniles waiting to be tried as adults.

The opinion, issued at the end of July, states that county jails holding such inmates are considered by law to be part of the state children and youth services system.

The ruling also says that the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth has the authority to monitor county jails and to investigate complaints regarding juveniles held as adults.

"What this opinion basically says is that you have to treat them as children," Sheriff Stanley Glanz told Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority members Friday.

The opinion was requested by the commission after a disagreement with the Sheriff's Office over which state agency should investigate complaints of mistreatment of juveniles held in the jail.

Last year, Pat Martinez, a longtime volunteer chaplain at the jail, said she had been dismissed a day after voicing concerns about treatment of juveniles at the jail.

The Sheriff's Office said she had been dismissed for violating jail policy by giving stamps to inmates and putting money in inmates' accounts for commissary items.

Martinez's complaints, which included juveniles being Maced and pepper-sprayed, were investigated by the Oklahoma Department of Health's Jail Inspection Division.

The agency cleared the jail of any wrongdoing, Chief Deputy Tim Albin said.

The practical effect of the attorney general's opinion is that the jail is now required to meet the same standards and to provide the same services as a juvenile detention center, Glanz said.

"We don't have the resources," he said.

Janice Hendryx, director of the Commission on Children and Youth, said she was delighted to receive the opinion.

It "is consistent with the practice we've been engaging in for 25 years," she said.

The commission remains an oversight group, with no power to enforce state laws related to jail conditions.

That remains the purview of the Health Department, Hendryx said.

One solution being considered by the Sheriff's Office is to move the juveniles held as adults to the county's juvenile bureau facility at 315 S. Gilcrease Museum Road.

But that option, officials say, could have the unintended consequence of forcing the juvenile bureau to release some of its youthful offenders early.

Glanz estimated that the jail is holding 20 juveniles awaiting trial as adults.

The jail is also holding five juvenile offenders until beds can be found for them in the Office of Juvenile Affairs.

Albin said that at least two juvenile inmates have been in the jail awaiting trial for more than a year.

"It's not like they're just here for a short period of time," he said.

Albin said the incarceration of juvenile inmates became a more complicated issue with the passage of the Youthful Offender Act.

Before it became law, the line between a juvenile offender and an adult offender was more clearly defined, and incarceration was handled accordingly, Albin said.

Now "they are all considered youthful offenders until they are convicted as adults, and therein lies the problem," Albin said.

The Sheriff's Office will meet Monday with District Judge Doris Fransein, who oversees the county's juvenile bureau, and Presiding District Judge Michael Gassett to look for ways to resolve the issue.

Kevin Canfield 581-8313

By KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer

Copyright Tulsa World 2007. Format differs from original publication.