A sign and fence at the Green Hill School for juvenile offenders, in Chehalis, Washington. (Photo by Jake Goldstein-Street/Washington State Standard)
Problems with overcrowding have enveloped the Green Hill School juvenile detention center in Chehalis for nearly two years, leading to unsafe conditions for the minors incarcerated there and the staff tasked with overseeing them.
But Washington state lawmakers left Olympia last month without making substantial changes to address the crisis. The lack of progress was frustrating for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
While a new facility opening this year in Aberdeen could offer some relief, the failure to pass significant legislation on the issue means Green Hill is on track to continue housing dozens more people than it is designed to safely hold.
State Senate Human Services Committee Chair Claire Wilson, D-Federal Way said she “really felt disappointed for the young people that we let down.”
The crowding at Green Hill comes as juvenile crime has ballooned and state law has transitioned to send young adults convicted of crimes to youth detention instead of adult prison until they turn 25.
The facility, along with Echo Glen Children’s Center in Snoqualmie, is one of the state Department of Children, Youth and Families’ two prisons for juvenile offenders.
Last year, the crowding crisis grew to the point that the state agency transferred 43 young men from Green Hill to an adult prison run by the state Department of Corrections and temporarily stopped taking in new people at the facility, a decision that drew staunch criticism and litigation.
For months, the population at Green Hill, which houses boys and men ages 17 to 25, has fluctuated between 220 and 240, despite a safe operational capacity of 180. Projections show that number rising another 100 by the end of 2026, according to Department of Children, Youth and Families Secretary Tana Senn.
Meanwhile, the agency’s assistant secretary for juvenile rehabilitation, Felice Upton, is no longer with the department, as of April 21. The circumstances of her departure were unclear. The agency declined to comment.
Upton also previously served as superintendent at Echo Glen.
Legislators this year earmarked money for increased security at Green Hill School and for operations at the smaller, new facility set to open next month in Grays Harbor County.
Lawmakers considered major policy changes this year to tackle the overcrowding. Two bills focused on different aspects of the issue passed the Senate before stalling in the House.
Senate Bill 5278 would have set new guidelines for transferring young people to adult prison or placing them there in the first place if youth facilities are above capacity.
Senate Bill 5296, sponsored by Wilson, would have tried to direct more youth away from detention in the first place. The measure would’ve required judges to specifically find, based on a “preponderance of the evidence,” that custody in juvenile rehabilitation was necessary because community-based placement would have been inadequate.
The bill also would have required court hearings to determine if people in youth prison should remain in custody, and expand eligibility for alternatives to incarceration.
“We seem to be very willing, if you will, to put money into a system to move our young people from JR into DOC, but not at all as willing to think about what it would take to keep young people from coming into the system in the first place,” Wilson said.
Wilson pushed to pass the two bills in tandem, as a package.
But while Senate Bill 5278, sponsored by Sen. John Braun, D-Centralia, had bipartisan support, the debate over Wilson’s proposal was fiercely partisan. Even a handful of House Democrats worried about the more lenient approach her bill offered.
In the end, Wilson’s legislation collapsed over these concerns, and Braun’s bill fell with it.
“There was a well-worked, bipartisan bill with a controversial bill, and to hold that bill hostage because you couldn’t get the votes in your own caucus for a controversial bill, it just seems wrong-headed or even mean-spirited, frankly,” said Braun, whose district includes Green Hill.
Debate among the Dems
More than two dozen House Democrats were so frustrated Wilson’s bill didn’t get a vote, they put out a joint statement entitled “Lessons In Failure.”
“For the young people trapped in a system that prioritizes incarceration over rehabilitation, this is more than a missed opportunity — it’s a moral failure,” they wrote.
State Rep. Lauren Davis, D-Shoreline, was one of the few in her caucus pushing back on Wilson’s bill. She thinks the state needs stronger consequences to deter minors from committing crimes, which often leave their peers as victims.
“I do not believe it is just or compassionate to allow these young people to self-destruct,” she said, noting the bill doesn’t expand the community supports needed to help young people diverted away from incarceration.
The case of a 17-year-old released from custody by a King County judge despite a criminal history before allegedly killing two teens in March further stoked opposition.
Davis said she’s “not sure what part of this is acceptable to anybody, but it should be unacceptable to anybody, and this bill would have fomented more of that.”
Davis said her views on public safety have evolved since joining the Legislature in 2019. She’s seen policies she supported result in homicides and suicides and doesn’t want to repeat those mistakes.
Her resistance toward Senate Bill 5296 did not make her popular among her colleagues, she said.
Eric Trupin, a University of Washington researcher who for decades has worked with incarcerated youth, lamented the bill’s failure.
“I think we had an opportunity to really move our juvenile justice system in a way that would really have improved outcomes for youths,” he said.
Still, he said concerns about a lack of services for diverted youth were valid.
Meanwhile, Senn said Wilson’s bill wouldn’t address the existing population concerns at Green Hill.
The debate isn’t over. The bills will likely be back next year for the 60-day legislative session.
“We’ve been working on this one for a long time,” Wilson said. “So it will come back, and hoping that Senator Braun will be responsive to bringing 5278 with it.”
Scant progress
The Legislature did make small moves to address juvenile detention needs.
Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a bill last month seeking to protect those held in the state’s juvenile detention centers from having to spend extra time in custody over “prison riot” charges. House Bill 1815 also looks to retroactively vacate those convictions.
An analysis found most of the prison riot charges statewide were prosecuted in Lewis County, where Green Hill is located. The new law could affect sentences or convictions for half a dozen or so detainees at Green Hill, Senn said.
Trupin said the bill is important for those individuals. “But it’s not systems changing like these other two bills were,” he said.
The new state budget sets aside $25 million to run the new 48-bed detention center on the grounds of Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, known as Harbor Heights. The facility is set to open in phases beginning in early June, starting with at least eight young men transferring there from Green Hill and filling to capacity by fall.
Harbor Heights will serve as a six-month rotation for young men in juvenile detention who qualify for medium security status.
While at Harbor Heights, they would build skills and participate in cognitive behavioral therapy to tackle mental health concerns. They’d then return to Green Hill or be released from custody.
“The hope is that young people will see it as an opportunity to expand their own learning and their own growth and their own development” before returning to be mentors at Green Hill, said Wilson.
The plan has drawn pushback from critics worried the former Department of Corrections facility will be dehumanizing, but officials have emphasized the Department of Children, Youth and Families will be running it with more services than adult prisons can provide.
Green Hill and Echo Glen are getting about $3.5 million each for increased security.
“I don’t think it’ll hurt,” Braun said. “We’ve put a ton of money into Green Hill in the last five years, six years. I think it’s helping. I don’t think it’s solving the problem. Fundamentally, it’s just overcrowded. They are not delivering on the promise to give these individuals the types of services they need to get back on track.”
Lawmakers also earmarked $3 million for grants to county courts to serve youth in the juvenile justice system. Another $3 million was set aside to scout new medium-security juvenile detention facilities. A top prospect has been the minimum-security Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Mason County, which is slated for closure.
Any new facility would be at least four years out, Senn said.
The budget is still subject to Ferguson’s approval this month.
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