LAS VEGAS -- At any given time, there are some two dozen teens in the Clark County Detention Center. Until recently, those kids lived alongside adult criminals.
Housing teens with adults has its obvious downsides, but for years, the exploding population at the county jail provided officials with few options. However, a recent drop in the number of inmates, has prompted some cell-shuffling. The result is a housing area for kids facing adult consequences.
"We can make sure that you graduate on time in the next two years." Rancho High School principal Dr. James Kuzma spoke those words in September when he was trying to get 16-year-old Joaquin Contreras to return to high school. It was part of an effort by school officials and state lawmakers to get drop out kids back in the classroom.
Now, nine months later Contreras would probably give anything to go back to that day and take the advice given him. Instead of a yearbook photo, he has a mug shot and is an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center.
"We can't lose sight of the fact that these are kids," Metro Police Asst. Sheriff Ted Moody said.
During a recent tour, Moody told the I-Team, the jail was housing some two dozen juveniles. Teens, who based on the severity of their crimes, were charged as adults.
"These kids are in here because they're in serious trouble, but we can't give up hope on them," he said. "We can't allow them to be influenced on a day-to-day basis by longer term, more hardened adult criminals."
For the first time, the seasoned crooks will be kept away from the rookies. The facility has dedicated a module to minors. It was a move made possible by a shrinking adult population. Here, teens as young as 14 years old attend life skills classes, addiction counseling and school, five days a week.
"Whatever the system can do to prevent the institutionalization that the adult system does to someone, and the hardening that occurs on the soul, and the mind, then the better the chance that these kids, when they do get out, can be successful," Clark County Judge William Voy said.
The majority, says Moody, will spend an average of three years behind bars. Joaquin faces even more for his plea to three counts of conspiracy to commit robbery. But while he remains, pending his sentencing next month, he will do on the inside what he could not, or would not do on the outside, work to earn his high school diploma.
"We're trying to give them the best chance to succeed, whatever the future holds for them," Moody said.
Unlike some states, Nevada law does not require detention facilities to separate juveniles from adults. It is however considered best practice. Assistant Sheriff Moody said it has been a department goal for number of years, but only when the population dropped, was it possible to make it work.
