The marchers say that juvenile detention centers should aim for rehabilitation and not incarceration.
By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published September 20, 2003
LARGO - The parents of a boy who was killed in Pinellas County's Juvenile Detention Center joined a demonstration Friday calling for reforms in the way Florida handles youths charged with crimes.
More than two dozen protesters outside the Mary Grizzle State Office Building on Ulmerton Road said Florida needs better training for detention workers, improved mental health services and an approach that looks for ways to rehabilitate youths without locking them up.
Diana Matthews, whose son Danny died in the detention center after a fight with another inmate in May, said detention workers "need to be trained properly. They don't have the people there, they're understaffed, they don't have the counseling skills."
As she and her husband Bob have sought more information about their son's death, and why no one was charged in connection with the killing, "they've given us a lot of lies, they've changed their stories constantly," she said.
Bob and Diana Matthews, who live just north of St. Petersburg, said they had never attended a protest before.
Bruce Wright, pastor of the Refuge/Solid Rock Church in St. Petersburg, said he spoke recently to a parent of an 8-year-old who was taken to the Juvenile Detention Center for striking a teacher in a class for emotionally handicapped students. He said that was an example of the system punishing children who really need mental health treatment.
Erika Doman of St. Petersburg, whose granddaughter was beaten in a separate Largo juvenile program, resulting in the arrests of two employees, also attended the demonstration to demand improvements to the system.
Florida Department of Juvenile Justice spokeswoman Catherine Arnold said "we have made great strides in enhancing the professionalism of our employees," including requiring detention workers and probation officers to complete a certification process.
She said prevention is one of four key missions of the department, which distributes thousands of dollars worth of prevention grants to community groups in targeted areas.
