The question of whether Lehigh County should enter into an agreement with Lackawanna and two other counties to create a regional youth detention center has been on the table for nearly two years, yet some are complaining the plan is being decided too quickly.

Lehigh County Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the 20-year agreement by April 22.

People in the trenches of juvenile court there who would make the final decisions of which children would be sent to the proposed Southeast Youth Detention Agency in Berks County, say the agreement makes sense.

“We’re not talking about kids who are doing retail thefts or vandalism. These are the most serious types of offenders,” Lehigh County President Judge Doug Reichley said. “Potential homicides, firearms offenses, sex offenses. I would ask you, if these were adult offenders under the same kinds of offenses, would you not think we’d be putting them in jail pending any bail resolution?”

But some people in the community and government there say the proposal feels rushed.

“It does feel like it’s being forced and pushed on us. Like, we’ve got to make a decision right away. But I refuse to believe there’s not alternative plans,” Lehigh County Commissioner April Riddick said.

That debate notwithstanding, Lackawanna County officials touted the juvenile detention partnership in February as the best and most cost-effective option available to address a “crisis” marked by a statewide shortage of detention beds. Commissioners here then unanimously approved a 20-year agreement formalizing it, joining others in praising the multi-county effort that comes after Lackawanna County stopped in 2018 housing juvenile offenders at the male-only Scranton detention center it leased from Lackawanna College.

Lackawanna has since relied on contracts with out-of-county facilities, including one as far away as Ohio, absorbing rising costs while grappling with surging demand for detention beds in a landscape with fewer and fewer available. It’s a challenge local officials expect the partnership to help address.

Juvenile justice

Of the approximately 400 youths who pass through Lehigh County’s juvenile court system each year, less than 2% require detention in a locked facility. By law, court officials must look for alternatives to confinement first — probation, house arrest and group homes are among the options.

But when a judge determines that a youth poses a risk to public safety, has a high likelihood of fleeing, or hasn’t complied with prior court orders, those teens must be locked up while they wait for adjudication, the juvenile court equivalent of sentencing.

Under the agreement still pending in Lehigh County, four partner counties — Lehigh, Lackawanna, Berks and Dauphin — would each pay one-quarter of the Bern Township facility’s operating costs and construction debt. The center would have 40 beds, with 10 assigned to each participating county. Planners estimate the center would cost about $10.5 million a year to operate, with each county responsible for about $2.6 million.

Like Lackawanna, Lehigh County does not have its own juvenile detention center. A 48-bed facility that opened there in 2005 in was mothballed in 2014 due to declining need. Teens who must be detained are now sent to detention centers in other counties and states, with Lehigh County paying up to $600 a day for a bed in those facilities.

The number of available places to put teens who need to be locked up has also dropped sharply. Between 2006 and September 2021,15 youth detention facilities ceased operations, according to the Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission.

Those in favor of Lehigh partnering with Lackawanna and the two other counties to launch the regional detention center cite a reduced cost to taxpayers as one of the deciding factors. Fewer youths in beds, coupled with high overhead costs, makes operating a detention center too costly for any one county, they say.

“Regionalization is the way to go,” Lehigh County Commissioner Dan Hartzell said. “Is this going to be a cakewalk for the next 20 years? No. When you’ve got four separate counties working together, there’s going to be speed bumps. But I think everybody is on the same page of being earnest and trying to work together, as fairly as possible.”

According to the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission, admissions to secure juvenile detention centers dropped 55% between 2018 and 2022, with 42% of that decrease occurring from 2019 to 2020. The decline was due to a variety of reasons, including greater use of detention alternative programs and COVID. When schools are closed, less juvenile crime is reported.

At the same time, changes to the juvenile justice landscape, including the 2021 federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, which banned the practice of holding some young offenders in adult jails, made the need for secure youth facilities more pressing.

As of April 2023, there were 13 youth detention facilities in the state, with only six of them open to placements from all counties. All of the facilities were short staffed, the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission found. Add to this a call for detained youth to be held as close to their families and communities as possible, and state officials began a push for regionalization in 2022.

The prison dilemma

Kevin Miller, Lehigh County’s chief juvenile probation officer, said these are weekly dilemmas facing judges and juvenile probation officers.

“This has been the best plan that I have seen where I can sleep at night,” Miller said. “With this plan, we are putting our kids in a safe, secure environment.”

Defense attorney Ettore Angelo disagrees, and asked the commissioners in Lehigh County to postpone their decision until the affect on juveniles and their families could be studied, and the cost of the project analyzed.

“Is it fiscally prudent to enter into a 20-year contractual obligation that will affect our children long after many of the officials supporting it have left office?” he asked.

Angelo also complained that the plan would mean sending detained juveniles so far away from their homes that their families wouldn’t be able to visit.

“Poor people cannot travel,” Angelo said. “And they need to be near their children. Their children need to be near them at this desperate time when they’re in custody. ”

Several members of Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley also spoke out against the plan at the commissioners meeting last week, urging the board to postpone the vote and consider less-restrictive options. Other community groups support the plan. Luis Perez, a former juvenile offender who often works as a liaison between detained youths and law enforcement through his Allentown nonprofit, Reciprocity, said a secure facility like the one proposed in Berks is needed to keep accused juveniles safe while they move through the system.

Kevin Barnhart, Berks County’s chief operations officer, said Berks would oversee most of the day-to-day operation of the center. Barnhart said the facility would provide detained juveniles with medical and dental care, therapy and programs. It would have a board with members from all the counties overseeing operations and keeping an eye on spending.

He also said he was offended by assertions that any of the counties involved were entering into the agreement for the money.

“This is not Kids for Cash,” he said, referring to the 2009 Luzerne County juvenile detention scandal that ended with two judges jailed for taking kickbacks from private detention centers. “This is about doing what’s right for the kids in four counties.”

Jeff Horvath, Times-Tribune staff writer, contributed to this report.