Juvenile injustice

It was just a year ago that lawmakers toured the Maine Youth Center and came away appalled. How, they asked, could the state hope to help troubled kids if it warehouses them in such a depressing, dilapidated, understaffed place?

Those tours, along with strong advocacy from Gov. King, Chief Justice Daniel Wathen and the Department of Corrections, led to a plan to rebuild Maine’s juvenile corrections system. More than $23 million will be spent in South Portland and Charleston on new buildings, new staff, new programs.

Now lawmakers are asking a different question: How can the King administration justify spending millions on bricks and mortar for a system that doesn’t have the mental-health services troubled kids need?

From any other source, it would be a good question. From the Legislature, it smacks of backside-covering.

Maine’s juvenile corrections system did not fall apart overnight, or even since Gov. King’s first inaugural. It took decades of neglect to get it where it is today — scathing Amnesty International reports, a lawsuit by the Disability Rights Center, public outrage — and the Legislature was full and willing partner in the crime.

The most recent uproar occurred the other day, when lawmakers blasted the Department of Corrections for not knowing how much money was in the Department of Mental Health budget for mental-health counseling in the juvenile system. DOC officials knew what was in their budget — a new social worker, a new guidance counselor and four new psychologists. DMH officials said their draft budget contained no such funding, but a revised version coming out in a few weeks will.

That wasn’t a good enough answer for lawmakers, but it was enough to initiate lots of accusations. Apparently unfamiliar with the give-and-take, draft-and-revise nature of the budget process, they took the opportunity to unload on everyone they deemed responsible for the collapse of Maine’s juvenile corrections system. Everyone but themselves. With a consultant’s report due in a few weeks that is expected to stress the need for better mental health services, the legislative tirade looks awfully like a pre-emptive strike of blame-fixing. Worse, this bipartisan assault on an independent administration looks awfully like an attempt to turn one of the most serious issues this or any other state faces into a political football. And society’s most vulnerable are the ones getting kicked around.

Since lawmakers now are questioning a plan they endorsed just last spring, here’s a couple of questions for them: Where in the 3,000 bills they submitted does this concern for mental-health services for juvenile offenders manifest itself? Did it get lost in the shuffle of handing out tax breaks and free hunting licenses? Was it not as urgent as designating an official state soil? How much mental-health care could be bought for, say, the $100,000 one lawmaker wants to give to community radio stations and the $100,000 another says is desperately needed to revive Maine’s once-mighty sign-making industry? Does the word “priorities” ring a bell?

Maine did not get a juvenile corrections system that is internationally notorious, ripe for litigation and utterly inhumane by accident. It took years of concerted effort by governors, legislators and voters to make this mess and it will take a concerted effort to clean it up. If lawmakers are done with the finger-pointing, they can pitch in any time.