Lafourche Parish President awaits ruling on BP ethics charge
March 12, 2013Our View: We should expect more from officials
March 12, 2013
On a chilly morning just a few weeks ago local court officials, educators and others saddled with the task of keeping kids in trouble out of more trouble traveled in vans and cars to view first-hand a program hailed as a top-notch model for keeping those children and the public safe.
The Multi-Agency Resource Center, or MARC, administered by Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, places services for children and families under one roof, with an eye toward nipping conduct and behavior problems in the bud.
“The MARC is a collaborative model of preventing youth from penetrating further into the criminal justice system by allowing schools, parents, and law enforcement to refer for intervention before the youth’s behavior deteriorates to warrant legal intervention,” said Dr. Debra DePrato, project director of the John T. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Louisiana Models for Change Program, a multi-million dollar project designed to promote and aid juvenile justice reform. “We hope that Calcasieu’s innovation will serve as a model for other jurisdictions.”
For Terrebonne Parish juvenile justice administrators, the idea of a similar facility to serve local children is a MARC would be a dream come true.
The center is part of a coordinated juvenile justice approach, operating on about $400,000 per year, about one-tenth of Calcasieu’s overall expenditures on juvenile justice programs.
The MARC is located near the parish’s juvenile detention center. When children in trouble are brought to the MARC they are evaluated so that officials can figure out what services they need most, if they should be detained, or if programs for correction and counseling should be developed.
Having one-stop shopping for services ranging from probation to mental health screenings when a child is brought to official attention before incarceration occurs, officials agree, allows for greater flexibility and better outcomes. For administrators, the ability for people engaged in various components of child assistance to communicate on site means fewer connections are lost, and that problems meshing the work various agencies perform can be overcome.
The focus at the MARC, Calcasieu officials maintain, is not to be punitive but to make every tool possible available to salvage children.
Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet is aware of the program, and would like to see something like it here. But he has already offered two sites for such a project. Juvenile justice workers acknowledge there was disagreement over whether such a project would be in downtown Houma or close to a planned new site for Terrebonne’s Juvenile Detention Center in Gray.
“I like the concept of the MARC,” said Claudet, while noting that diversion from jailing for children in trouble who have not committed serious criminal offenses – a goal favored by Gov. Bobby Jindal and by administrators of local juvenile services – is being effectively accomplished by City Court Judge Thaddeus Fanguy, who hears juvenile cases. City Court’s juvenile division, Claudet said, has made great strides in recent years. Problems at the detention center investigated by federal authorities, including abuse of children by staff, have been corrected, he said.
“He is far ahead of many other institutions,” Claudet said.
But as much as he favors the MARC concept, Claudet said, money once available is not in the parish coffers anymore.
“We have made other commitments in the meantime,” he said. “I am hoping we can do it in the future. But I don’t know where it would be housed or where it would be funded.”
Claudet is also aware that Jason Hutchinson would like to have a psychiatrist on call for the Juvenile Detention Center. But he doesn’t see money for the coming down the pike anytime soon.
“We have had discussions,” Claudet said. “Money can solve a lot of problems. If we had the funding for it, it would be the most wonderful thing in the world. There are cutbacks in mental health funding at the federal level and the state level. How do they think we can get money to handle programs we didn’t have in the first place?”
Legislation supported strongly by Gov. Bobby Jindal will be filed during the coming session in Baton Rouge. Terrebonne Juvenile Court coordinator Brenda Johnson is among local voices who are hoping for the best in that regard.
She and other advocates will have an opportunity to help map out change, when legislative committee hearings are held.
Meanwhile she and others, like detention center director Jason Hutchinson and City Court administrator Doug Holloway, say they will keep fighting on behalf of local kids.
“If there is a program out there that I can get a child into, if it is something that will help, I will find it,” Johnson said.
The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury’s Multi-Agency Resource Center – MARC – is the model for other jurisdictions when it comes to serving for juvenile offenders.
