ST. LOUIS — A 15-year-old who has escaped from two juvenile detention centers in St. Louis appears headed to the city’s jail for adults.
Advocacy experts oppose the move, but juvenile authorities say it is necessary as they grapple with ways to prevent repeated escapes as well as protect the teen, their staff and the public.
The 22nd Judicial Circuit oversees the juvenile detention center along Enright Avenue, which has been the scene of repeated escapes from custody.
Juvenile authorities asked Judge David Roither in February to move the teen to the City Justice Center after he became certified as an adult to face armed robbery charges.
“The Juvenile Detention Center does not have the ability to provide for the care, custody, and control of the pretrial-certified juvenile or to protect the public, staff members and other youth in its custody from him,” according to the motion written by James Michaels, chief trial attorney for the 22nd Judicial Circuit’s Juvenile Office.
The motion could be the first of its kind in the state, as it invokes a part of the recently enacted Raise the Age law. That law raised the age of a juvenile in Missouri from 17 to 18, bringing the state in line with most other states in the country.
Before the law took effect in 2021, certified teens like the 15-year-old in question automatically went to adult facilities. Now, juvenile authorities must prove they belong there in extreme circumstances.
Roither granted the motion to move the teen in part on March 9, but not without a catch and some concerns echoed by juvenile justice advocacy experts including whether the city’s adult jail is secure enough to prevent him from escaping.
“There have been several instances in the past two years leading this court to question whether the facility is secure, and whether the facility can meet the needs of the certified juvenile,” Roither wrote. “First, there have been at least two major incidents in the past two years where the adult detainees of that facility have manipulated the locks to their cells and orchestrated mass breakouts within the building to the extent that the adult detainees have been able to break out exterior windows of that facility, start fires and injure staff.
“The adult jail is under a change in management leadership, and there have been public pronouncements made about the work being done to repair the locks to make that building secure, but on the day of the hearing, no one present for the state could update the court on whether or not the building was no fully secure.”
Roither also noted a recent guilty plea by a former staff member who admitted to opening cells to allow adult detainees to attack each other.
“It was apparent the state had given no forethought in how to provide for this youth the services that he will require in the areas of education, mental health care, medication regime or visitations,” Roither wrote. “At the hearing, the only concrete plan presented by the state was to isolate the certified juvenile on a separate floor from other adult detainees in his own cell.”
Juveniles who end up in adult facilities are likely to end up in isolation as a way to keep them protected, but research shows the effects of isolation are devastating on juveniles just as they are on adults, said Joshua Rovner, senior advocacy associate for The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit think tank dedicated to criminal justice reform.
“Children who are sent to adult jails are more likely to offend again than similarly situated children who are sent to juvenile facilities so, in other words, this is worse for public safety,” Rovner said. “For one thing, juvenile facilities are filled with teenagers and staff that are equipped to handle those teenagers.
“Adult jails are filled with adults and adults who are trained to deal with adults. Jails are not built to handle 15 year olds, there's no educational programming, there no mental health counseling that is built for a 15-year-old, that's why we have the juvenile system.”
Roither noted some of the grim stats in his ruling, nothing children housed in adult jails have a mortality rate nine times higher than their peers in the general population; they are 36 times more likely to die by suicide than those kept in juvenile detention and four times more likely to be sexually abused than those kept in juvenile facilities.
Juvenile authorities argue they are limited by law on how much force they can use, and, they are unarmed.
They outline the juvenile’s history as follows:
At the age of 13, in September 2019, he was found guilty in a juvenile court in Tennessee of trying to assault an aunt and uncle as well as a police officer with a knife.
In March 2021, he was found guilty of attempted robbery and armed criminal action in St. Charles Family Court after he robbed someone at gunpoint. He was committed to the Division of Youth Services.
He was moved to the facility along Hogan Street in St. Louis after alleged incidents at the Division of Youth Services Hillsboro Treatment Center.
In July, police said he tried to stab a staff member there. He’s been charged with first-degree assault for that allegation. Police said he also smeared bleach in that staff member’s eyes and is charged with second-degree assault and armed criminal action for that allegation.
In September, he escaped from the facility by smashing through a window with a fire extinguisher, assaulted a staff member during his escape and stole a car off the premises.
He was then moved to the facility along Enright Avenue in St. Louis – which has been the site of four escapes involving at least a dozen youths within the past six months.
In September, he punched another juvenile in the face, according to the motion.
A month later, he attacked a youth leader. Two days later, authorities found a shank on him, which he said he was planning to use on a particular staff member.
Four days after that, on Oct. 16, one of the escapes happened. He told youth leaders he helped plan it and was frustrated that he didn’t have the chance to escape because he was off of the unit when his fellow juveniles made their move.
In November, he tried to escape from his room by breaking glass, announcing he had another shank and trying to choke a responding youth leader with his handcuff chain and assaulting others with his hands.
Also that month, he threatened to kill himself, wrapped a shirt around his neck. A staff member was injured in the fight to restrain him.
On Feb. 5, he along with three of his fellow detainees escaped from the detention center. St. Louis police recaptured him later that day.
On Feb. 11, he threatened staff and threatened to break a glass door. Three days later, he threatened self-harm.
On Feb. 20, he attacked two youth leaders, punching both of them and breaking one of their glasses.
The teen’s public defender lobbied the court to let him go live with his guardian while he waits for his day in court.
Roither denied that request, saying the teen’s family ties are “so weak that the only member appearing on his behalf at a hearing was his non-biological step-father whose long-term involvement with the youth is unclear to the court.”
He added: “The youth has been involved in physical attacks on extended family members with whom he was living.”
Roither also noted the teen’s father has been incarcerated and his mother had “not been involved with him for some time.”
Ultimately, Roither agreed the teen should be moved to the adult facility as he is, “larger and stronger than most his age and has demonstrated through his actions that he has the ability to overwhelm physically the youth leaders responsible for him in juvenile detention.”
However, Roither also wants the state to present a plan that will offer the teen the same access to services and support that he would get in a juvenile setting.
That plan is still a work in progress for now, according to a spokesman for the courts.
5 On Your Side is not naming the teen because he is a minor when the alleged incidents occurred.