More News

In light of a year marked by a violent riot and findings of high recidivism and low efficiency, the juvenile justice arm of the Maryland Attorney General's office is recommending that the Victor Cullen Center in Sabillasville be downsized.

The recommendation was outlined in a 2009 annual report released Tuesday by the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit, which gave an overview of the progress and shortcomings of all juvenile justice facilities in Maryland.

The report suggests that the Victor Cullen Center try to increase its effectiveness by temporarily reducing its population from 48 male youth to 24.

"Victor Cullen has not developed as planned," the report reads. "After two and a half years of ongoing problems, more of the same strategy is not likely to significantly improve the program."

The center has four, 12-bed cottages. The report recommends that it reduces to two cottages to focus on more intensive rehabilitation programs. One cottage, the report reads, should serve youth with low intellectual functioning, house a self-contained classroom and offer straightforward behavioral therapy.

"If Victor Cullen succeeds on a small scale, decisions to expand to capacity and to construct new treatment facilities for boys can move forward with more optimism," the report concludes.

The recommendation by the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit was heavily based on recent incidents and findings at the center.

They include a riot that took place in May 2009, during which 10 youth overpowered and assaulted the center's staff and four escaped through its security fences and attempted to steal a car. In December, the monitoring unit also found that 65 percent of youths released from the center in fiscal 2008 were re-arrested, as were 60 percent who were released in fiscal 2009.

Marlana Valdez, director of the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit, did not return calls for comment by The Gazette's press time.

Tammy Brown, chief of staff for the Department of Juvenile Services, said the department had already been implementing the recommendations from the monitoring unit.

After the May riot, she said, the department reduced the population at the Cullen Center and brought in seasoned staff for retraining before gradually moving back to its full capacity this month.

She said that the focus on the department is to ensure that the center, which is young compared to its national counterparts, has staff that is properly trained.

"It's one of those things, that with any new programs — just finding the right balance of the right staff, getting them stable and maintaining them," Brown said. "I think the JJMU has been a little misleading in that it criticizes the model, and it's not the model."

Brown said the Department of Juvenile Services would not be interested in permanently reducing the number of youth it houses because it has been proven that the best rehabilitation is done when youth are close to their families.

Victor Cullen is the only maximum security facility for boys in the state, many of them would have to go out of state for rehabilitation, she said.

E-mail Erica L. Green at

egreen@gazette.net.