Remove the industrial surroundings and barbed wire, replace the thick steel doors and sterile hallways, and Summit View Youth Correctional Center could be a high school, the standard-issue green shirt and khakis worn by its 72 inmates resembling the uniform at a religious preparatory. Tall and bespectacled, with ironing-board straight posture, intelligent eyes and textbook enunciation, Audrey Fetters could pass for a high-school guidance counselor or a teacher in one of the classes inmates are required to attend during their nine- to 12-month incarceration. She's neither. Summit View's new superintendent (her business cards still read "assistant superintendent"), Fetters succeeds Robert McClellan, the former Montana lawman credited with helping clean up the mess left by private prison firm Youth Services International.
And what a mess it was.
Opened in June 2000, Summit View housed Nevada's most hardened 13- to 18-year-olds, their charges ranging from reckless endangerment to vehicular homicide to conspiracy to commit murder. A year later, it was clear the inmates ran the place. In June 2001, 19 inmates led a rooftop riot to protest living conditions (quality of food, access to televisions). Soon after, allegations surfaced of staff throwing pizza parties for, giving marijuana to and sexually cavorting with prisoners. (District Judge Joseph Bonaventure later sentenced two female workers convicted of performing oral sex on unruly inmates to probation, $500 fines and impulse-control classes.) State officials worked feverishly to address a litany of problems uncovered in an audit—inadequate procedures to prevent escape, subpar staff training, poor tracking of allegations of mistreatment—only to have Florida-based YSI opt out of its $4.3 million annual contract in September 2001. Mothballed for two years as lawmakers argued privatization vs. state control, the prison reopened last February under the auspices of the state Department of Human Resources' Division of Child and Family Services. Lawmakers figured the state could better run the facility. But could it?
Fetters says the first year since reopening hasn't been without challenges. There are still fights, "though it's not as big as a problem you think it might be.
"It's not really a gang-related thing in here, though we have rival gang members. It's more of an individual thing. For example, we have one kid with low impulse control. He can like you one minute, then the next, he might think to himself, 'I need to hit him,' and he'll do it."
Nor are inmate-on-staff assaults a major problem. "It does happen, but that's not any anomaly here or anywhere else," says Fetters, a licensed clinical social worker in Nevada and Washington state. "We really try to build rapport with the youth. And we tell the staff that the residents are still adolescents, and adolescence is a time for rebellion, even for kids who are not committing offenses."
And there's absolutely no cavorting between staff and inmates, she says. Female guards no longer conduct strip searches.
Walking through Summit View, you can see that some of the state's recommendations have been addressed. Sandwiched between the barbed wire ringing the compound is slick "no-climb" fencing to thwart escapes. When staff interacts with inmates, doors are now open, "to protect all parties."
Inmates can rely on a hospital's worth of professionals: five mental-health counselors, a drug and alcohol counselor, marriage and family therapist, psychologist and psychiatrist. Civic and religious groups offer church services, mentoring and tutoring. The school district provides educational outlets.
The biggest difference between now and the YSI days, Fetters says, is the staff—it's paid and trained (40 hours of instruction on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, suicide prevention, noticing red flags, identifying "con games and manipulations," as well being schooled in cognitive restructuring, a behavioral-modification system teaching juveniles to address "thinking errors," to look at their actions "in a big picture view").
"When YSI ran it, there were five administrators in 18 months, and each person had a different philosophy, there was high staff turnover, people were paid minimum wage and there was minimal training," Fetters says. "I'm guessing that all the things contributed to the bad climate."
A phone message left for Correctional Services Corporation, which owns YSI, wasn't returned by press time.
The implementation of a system that rewards performance has reduced behavioral issues, Fetters says, creating incentives for even the hardest kid to shape up. "Research shows that it takes four months for incarcerated youth to settle down and commit to changing their behavior," Fetters says. "In cognitive restructuring, they learn they can't think one way and act another. Either they're going to change their thinking or they're going to change their behavior. In this system, you can't fake it till you make it."
An inmate day is regimented from 6:15 a.m. to 9 p.m., with noontime and afternoons set aside for recreation.
It's nearing noon. Outside, in the walkway leading to the exercise yard (gym, track, volleyball and hoops courts, football field) several inmates are exercising. One young man is sprinting around the track, another is doing push-ups. Two juveniles listen attentively as staff offer counsel.
"Hi, Mrs. Fetters. How are you doing?" one young man asks. Daily walks through the facility have familiarized her with most of the inmates.
"I'm doing fine. And you?"
"Fine. And you?"
"I got a review coming up."
"Are you looking forward to it?"
"Yes, I ain't been getting into any trouble."
Asked about recidivism rates (currently at zero percent), Fetters says she's confident the young men who leave Summit View won't come back. Like the three departing today, clothes stuffed into white garbage bags, smiles etched on their faces as they proceed through the gate—they're free.
Says Fetters, "Because of what they learned in here, I have a gut feeling that they will not see the inside of another institution."