Despite overcrowding and associated safety issues in juvenile rehabilitation facilities in the state of Washington — most prominently at Green Hill School in Chehalis — lawmakers failed to pass any meaningful reforms to the system during this year's legislative session.
Green Hill School, which has operated above its rated safe capacity for more than a year now, has been at the very center of the debate around reforming the state's juvenile rehabilitation program.
The facility, which would ideally operate with no more than 180 residents, is currently home to upwards of 230. For the last year, rising violence by inmates against fellow residents and staff members, as well as increased drug use and seizures of contraband, have been highlighted as apparent side effects of the overcrowding.
Now, despite some additional funding for juvenile rehabilitation and minor reforms, Senate Minority Leader Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, argued in a recent interview with The Chronicle Editorial Board that the situation remains as bad as it was before the year's legislative session.
“This is a mess, and it's largely the same mess as it was before session, which is disappointing,” Braun said. “If you genuinely want to help people, and you’re serious about it, you would work to give them the tools to maintain the population in a reasonable way and help who they can.”
Approaches to reforming the system have come from all angles.
Ultimately, the two bills proposing the most meaningful reforms died in the House, while some smaller reforms, which are unlikely to address the capacity issue, made it through.
Extra funding to hire more staff, improve safety and get a new facility in Grays Harbor County off the ground is included in the current proposed operations budget that awaits Gov. Bob Ferguson’s signature.
Senate Bills 5278 and 5296
The two bills proposing the most significant reforms to the juvenile rehabilitation program and the most likely to have an impact on overcrowding issues started in the Senate early on in the session but ultimately died in the House when neither was scheduled for a vote on the House floor after making it through the committee process.
The two proposed laws came at the problem from both sides of the system and the political aisle. Senate Bill 5278, sponsored by Braun, would have enacted policies that required the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) to monitor capacity and take immediate action to lower facility populations when reaching a certain number of residents. To do that, the law gave the department the power to transfer residents out of a juvenile rehabilitation facility under certain circumstances, either into community integration programs or to the state Department of Corrections.
Senate Bill 5296, sponsored by Sen. Claire Wilson, D-Auburn, aimed to stem the flow of new residents into the juvenile rehabilitation program instead of lowering the number of current residents. The proposed law would have required judges to justify sentencing a juvenile to long-term confinement in a youth facility with the aim of diverting more juveniles to community programs.
The two bills were often lumped together during the legislative session and pitched by Democrats as a pair of reforms designed to work together. However, Braun's bill passed the Senate with unanimous support while Wilson's passed along party lines.
According to Braun, Democrats ultimately tried to use his bill as leverage to get their own policy across the finish line.
When Republicans refused to support Wilson’s bill, Braun’s became collateral damage.
“From the very beginning, she wanted to make this pitch that they were linked together,” Braun said. “We never said it was linked together. We never voted for the bill. We argued vehemently against it on the floor of the Senate, because it was wrong headed. But then, you know, it went all the way through, and they both came to the floor in the House at the same time. They didn't have the votes for 5296. The votes were there for 5278, and they tried to use killing 5278, ultimately they did kill it, to try to get 5296 across the line.”
House Bill 1815
Washington Democrats did manage to push through some minor reforms to the juvenile rehabilitation system during the year's session. The most publicized was House Bill 1815, which gets rid of the felony prison riot charge for residents of juvenile facilities. Prison riot is a class B felony in the state of Washington and is punishable by at least one year in prison and as many as 10.
The bill passed through the Legislature mostly along party lines, with just a few Republican votes in the House, and was signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson in the last three days of the session.
New charges of prison riot against juveniles in Green Hill School seem to have slowed before its passage, with no new charges in the Lewis County Superior Court appearing in the state database since the beginning of April.
That could be because the law not only gets rid of the charge for current and future offenders, but also establishes a process to vacate past convictions of prison riot against juvenile facility residents.
Prison riot can be charged in the state when two or more inmates of a correctional institution disturb order through violence or the threat of violence. Some testifying during public hearings on the bill argued the charge has been overused and charged against residents that attempted to break up fights or defend themselves.
According to testimony from the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission, the prison riot charge was never intended to be used against juveniles and. The commission said it was an unintended consequence of a 2021 law that included juvenile facilities operated by DCYF in the definition of correctional facilities for the purpose of extending medical services.
Many opposed the bill, such as the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. Representatives said they would be open to changing how the prison riot charge is applied and the severity of the charge, but they would like to still have the charge at their disposal when necessary.
“We do not insist that prison riot by juveniles remain a class B felony. Of course, we should look at that,” said James McMahan with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
The Consolation
In the absence of meaningful policy reform, the Legislature included roughly $60 million more in funding for juvenile rehabilitation under DCYF in its operating budget proposal compared to the previous biennium. That funding, however, is not a sure thing without Ferguson's signature. A rebuilding of the operations budget could put that funding in jeopardy.
The extra funding is intended to improve safety and help staffing efforts, particularly for a new juvenile facility near Grays Harbor called Harbor Heights. The new facility, which would accommodate nearly 50 juveniles, was planned to open in March, but was delayed as the department struggled to find enough staff to begin operations. The opening date for the facility has now been pushed back with no official timeline.
While the opening of the facility would allow for the transfer of residents out of the overcrowded Green Hill facility, Braun is skeptical of how soon the facility will be able to open. He said moving inmates to the new facility doesn’t address the real problem.
“I think it’s net a good thing. I have zero confidence it will really address the issue, because, I mean, they’re having trouble just hiring for security there, and that’s not even getting to services,” Braun said. “Look, Chehalis has been doing education in Green Hill for … a long, long time, and they know how to do this. Nobody out there has done it. It doesn't mean they can't, or they won't figure it out, but it will take a while and that's just one aspect.”
