To the editor,
At the board of supervisors meeting on April 29, Supervisor Dan Benitz described conditions at the Eldora facility for young people who have been adjudicated to be delinquent. Benitz said there is high staff turnover because staff are assaulted “on a daily basis with urine and feces thrown at them.”
I have taught young people adjudicated to be delinquent in several Iowa institutions and programs. What Benitz describes would have been considered insane a generation ago and would have brought immediate state intervention. Either the youth doing this would have been placed in a higher level of care, possibly a mental health placement, or the administrators of the facility would have been removed.
Now, with the State only contracting with stand-alone agencies, there is little oversight unless a tragedy happens. Contracts and inertia prevent intervention. Prevention has to happen from the counties using the stand-alone agencies.
Greene County youth, all youth in trouble, need a decent, controlled, safe environment with competent adults in charge. What Benitz described is bedlam.
The county auditor said the county is paying $150.00 a day for this kind of environment. This is tuition for training in lack of self-control that will eventually end in youth re-offending and possibly re-offending in a more socially unacceptable way than whatever behavior landed them in the facility in the first place. This money is wasted and, worse, put to bad purpose in showing youth that assault is acceptable.
Should our Greene County youth be sent to a program like that? Do we want any young people placed in a dysfunctional setting?
Dr. Janice Harbaugh, Jefferson
