The Missouri Model

Photos here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CFcbp2yoTEbE5CRmwtxbt5fkH4qnlHL2?usp=share_link 

I have spent the past three days exploring the world-renowned Missouri model of care for young people who are in the care of the State of Missouri, USA because of their crimes. I have visited three levels of secure care and a day treatment centre managed by the Division of Youth Services, and two youth detention remand facilities managed by Clay County and Jackson County. Missouri is made up of 114 counties and it has been fascinating to see how the stage legislation and local county systems interact.

Legislative context

Many significant, high-level offences are dealt with by the adult system

There is a significant legislative difference that influences Missouri’s Division of Youth Services’ approach, which is that young people who commit felonies are often treated as adults in the court system – therefore they are subject to adult sentences and can be sent to an adult correctional facility without spending any time in a youth facility. I am waiting for statistics on how often this happens but it’s something I had to remind myself often as I walked through the youth facilities and observed the therapeutic and calm environments. When I told the young people in one group that in Australia no matter what the crime you were treated as a child, their eyes got wide. “You mean you can’t get a life sentence in an adult jail if you’re under 18? I’m moving to Australia!”

A very big carrot and an even bigger stick

The other element of legislation in Missouri that empowers their youth justice approach is that for most young people, the court has not determined the length of their sentence. That means that if a young person is in a secure facility, their transition back to community happens when the centre assesses that they have completed their treatment. If a young person engages in the program completely, they will go home sooner. If they get into an incident and are restrained, they may need to add another conflict resolution or anger management course to their treatment program, meaning they will get out later. You can imagine how powerful this is in terms of motivating young people to do what is expected of them.

For some young people (“dual jurisdiction kids”), their offence qualifies as being dealt with by the adult system, but their lawyer and the Division of Youth Services have petitioned the court to allow them to complete the youth program until they are 21, at which time the court decides if they should be released or complete the rest of their adult sentence, which can be 20 years to life for some offences. For those young people they can be in a youth secure facility from any age - there is no minimum age of criminal responsibility - until they are 21. I met a young man who was about to turn 21 and he had been in the facility since he was 15. At any time, a young person can be transferred from a youth facility to an adult facility. The young man expressed a huge amount of gratitude for the youth program taking him on and he was about to transition out with a high school diploma, certificate and experience in barbering, a job, a place to live with family who had undergone significant family therapy with him in the years he had been there, and no criminal record. He told me, “The system sets you up to fail, this place sets you up to succeed”.

The model

Home-like environment

In all Division of Youth Services facilities, the young people sleep on bunk beds with soft toys, soft mattresses, blankets and pillows. The beds are in a dormitory-style room, with lockers and drawers assigned to each young person for their personal items. Staff sit at a desk in the room to monitor young people at night and check on each young person every 15 minutes. Young people wear their own clothes. If they don’t have family to bring clothes from home the centre provides clothes for them. I asked about the decision to have young people wear their own clothes (asking if they felt jealous of others who had more expensive things or if young people stood over each other for shoes etc.) and I was told they usually felt there was “no need to dress to impress on the inside”. The philosophy includes discovery of self-identify, individuality and self-esteem, and the healthy expression of these things. There is an expectation that young people wear neat, clean clothes and are well presented for school each day, but they can wear sweats on Saturday for cleaning day. There is also a therapeutic piece of work about wants vs needs, which draws out young people’s views of wanting to own expensive items vs meeting their basic needs.

Books, video games, instruments, soft furnishings and home-like decorations are in every setting. I did not see any graffiti. There are no cleaning staff – young people do chores as part of their regular schedule – and young people and staff eat together “like a family”.

Therapeutic processes

Young people move through levels. When they enter a facility, they are asked to just “look, listen and learn”. They observe the processes and are tested on the beliefs and philosophies, staff names, routines, rights and responsibilities before moving onto level 1. Because of the state’s ability to determine release dates based on the progression through the four levels (on average this takes 9-12 months), there is a high level of group consistency. A new young person is helped to understand the rules by the other young people, and a group that is considered to be well developed needs no intervention at all by staff. Each level includes several therapeutic processes, which build on each other. In level 1 young people describe themselves, in level 2 they explore their offences, triggers and underlying needs, in level 3 they learn about their trauma and victim empathy and when they reach level 4 their focus is on reintegration, re-connection with family and preparing to be on the outside. Each young person’s individualised plan also includes therapeutic processes related to their particular needs (e.g. substance misuse).

After completing each therapeutic process, young people present what they have learned to their group as a poster or other visual representation, and the group has the opportunity to comment or ask questions. At first when I visited the group meeting rooms, I was shocked to see posters with detailed descriptions of offences and previous abuse shown on the walls. For example, the “Line of Body”, an outline of a young man’s body with arrows pointing to each body part such as “neck – my step-dad used to choke me when he would get mad” or the “Victim Web”, a diagram of a young man’s victims and the impact on their lives such as “victim – lost his life and didn’t get to meet his grandkids”. I was told the gradual progression into the more in-depth topics is intentional and newer young people are able to see the stages they will reach before they get there themselves. I spoke to one young man about this, and he said it helped him a lot because he was hearing about other young people being hurt by their fathers, losing their mothers and struggling with the same anger issues he was dealing with inside. He had never heard anyone else talk about that before and he immediately felt less alone and more connected to the group.

Circles: conflict resolution and processing

I was welcomed into each group with staff and young people standing in a circle, each taking turns to introduce themselves followed by a group discussion. Circles are used throughout the day, as regular check-ins about how everyone is feeling, as a conflict resolution strategy, to ‘call out’ behaviour, recognise something positive that has happened, or to ‘process’ or reflect following activities. Any young person or staff member can call a circle and everyone in the group must join. The person who has called the circle might say “I’m calling this circle on Jake because I noticed you spoke to Stacey disrespectfully. When you did that, I felt worried Stacey’s feelings might have been hurt and you have not remembered your responsibility to respect others”. Jake would be required to listen and would have the opportunity to respond, but not to justify his actions or argue back. I thought it was interesting that the whole group would be involved, even when there is conflict between just two of its members. In my centre we use restorative practices to mediate conflict between people who are directly involved, but a young woman in Missouri told me, “The whole group is affected when there is conflict between two of its members”. This comment showed me how the group process is viewed here. A manager at one centre told me they never move young people from one group to another, “Anything can be worked through, and if we just move people on, how will they ever learn the skills to resolve conflict when they’re back in the community? We want them to know they’re worthy of our patience and time.”

Young people as mentors

The expectation is that young people become more and more involved in mentoring others as they progress through the levels. They also take the lead on restraining young people, which surprised me very much. If a young person is posing a risk to safety, other young people can call a restraint and take them to the ground. Two young people described this process in detail to me, including “not putting pressure on joints, turning them onto their back when they reach the ground and waiting for them to be calm before letting them up and talking about what happened”. I never saw a restraint used and I was told they are rare, but I think my surprise showed on my face when I heard the young people put their hands on other young people, something only trained staff would do in Australia.

One young man I had lunch with was telling me how important it is to him that young people take charge of supporting and mentoring others. He said when he first arrived it was hard to listen to other kids but when he realised they cared about him and wanted the best for him it got easier. He was on level 4 so he had been mentoring others for a while and he was about to go into his first job when he gets out. He said he had learned how to be ok with other people telling him what to do, how to give feedback in a kind and direct way, and how to ask for time when he needed to process other people’s criticism of himself. He was surprised and happy to be asked if I could quote him in my report, “Staff come and go, and they have homes they can go to, but we can’t. We are together day and night. We trust and support each other so we’re the best people to mentor each other”.

Final thoughts

On the last day of my visit, Kansas City won the SuperBowl!!! The city had been alive with the buzz all week and I can only imagine the party that started at the end of the game.

On Tuesday I will be visiting a youth detention Centre in Jacksonville, Florida, and meeting their probation services team. I’m excited to see how different states in the USA approach youth justice.