Tulsa County Today
The juvenile bureau in Tulsa is named the Family Center for Juvenile Justice. The name reflects the philosophy that juvenile justice issues are family issues that don’t exist in a vacuum. Tulsa has been following the Missouri Approach to programming for youth. With the goals of restoring youth to their families, schools, and communities as healthy, law-abiding citizens, they use smaller, close-to-home programs, family-like groups, and least-restrictive environments. The approach is therapeutic rather than correctional and involves the whole family. Emphasis is on prevention, intervention, and treatment in partnership with community resources.36
A few years ago, Tulsa supported a bond election to fund the design and building of a new comprehensive facility to house the detention center, juvenile courts, counselors, classrooms, and other family resources, with the goal of facilitating all of the complex transactions among the courts, lawyers, detention, and wraparound services. From the architect’s webpage:
“From the very beginning of the design process, every effort was made to create an environment of transparency and hope. The juvenile housing pods will emulate home and the courtrooms will speak to the imagination of children. A spacious entry lobby with whimsical lighting will include a children’s area that incorporates playful geometric structures – providing a fortress for children to explore on their own. When complete, this new center will serve the families of Tulsa County and help the Juvenile Bureau accomplish their mission of hope.”37
The language in the description suggests a huge change in philosophy from the norms around the country. “Whimsical,” “imagination,” “home,” and “hope” are unexpected and indicate that punishment is being replaced by hope as the mission of the county system. The facility is a few months short of completion so that we cannot yet draw our own conclusions.
In my interview with Doris Fransein, retired family judge and influencer of reform in the Tulsa system, she explained that Tulsa County has had a more holistic philosophy than states around us in dealing with juvenile offenders, trying to engage parents and give them tools to help their children. Tulsa judges are active in keeping youth out of detention while many states work to push them in. Probation is always their first goal, not detention. Youth at the Tulsa detention center can stay no more than 14 days before they are released to guardians or DHS, as appropriate. Few remain locked up post-adjudication. Tulsa County uses objective assessments like the YLSI (Youth Level of Service Inventory) to place them. The detention center has a counselor on staff, which she says is rare but extremely effective in keeping disregulated kids calm. Since Fransein began her time there in 2005 the center added a full-time mediator to the deprived child docket. The result was a resolution of about 70 percent of those cases without trial. Tulsa’s family drug court is a national model, as its Safe Babies Court Team; this division of the juvenile court coordinates with child welfare and child service organizations to serve infants and toddlers who are under the court’s jurisdiction. Tulsa County now receives national recognition for its trauma-informed practices in dealing with families in their court system.
Still, this description of Tulsa County’s facilities and philosophies are over-gilded, and there is a lot of work to be done become the facility that our voters endorsed and that our youth need. In 1915 my student Ariel narrated her experience at the Tulsa Juvenile Detention Center: "I remember going to JBDC and getting locked up. When I got to the back they made me take off my clothes and get in the shower but only for 5 minutes. They only let me sleep in a long t-shirt and socks and that's it. It is always cold in the jail cells. And all they give you to sleep with is a cot and a blanket.” She describes a facility that looks and feels like a jail. The mentality that is inherent in the setting and actions here are not going to go away overnight, just because there are new buildings.
Many my students do not know that our school, Phoenix Rising, is a product of the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice’s plan to interrupt the life-choices or situations that have directed them to their current situations either in the system or headed towards it. As described above, we are a restorative practices school, and we provide as many resources as possible, such as transportation, a therapist, a food pantry, and a clothes closet, to eliminate the factors that keep them from coming to school or falling into regrettable situations. This year we began a two-month partnership with the Tulsa Police Department called Project Trust. Officers worked intimately with students to explore topics in policing and civil rights and to help each group see things from the other’s perspective. After the police shooting of Terrence Crutcher three years ago, the department looked for ways to build relationships with the community while addressing their frustration and anger over the incident. It was successful example of a how a relatively small investment in time and resources can begin to bring some equilibrium back to the stressed dynamic between an urban police department and its damaged community.
Without knowing the context of their school in the larger picture of our country’s and state’s juvenile justice systems, my students cannot fully appreciate the efforts towards rehabilitation that have been made on their behalf. But our local and state systems still have a long way to go, and students can be agents of improvement by challenging the problems above the advocating for improvement, as described below.
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