IT'S THE DRUGS, STUPID:

At Long Lane, they see no evil, hear no evil

The state's child acvocate, Linda Pearce Prestley, is right to rip the cover
off the conditions teen-agers endure at Long Lane School, the state's
facility for juvenile delinquents.

The institution is utterly medieval. Chaining kids to beds? No sprinkler
system? Has anyone in power contemplated what would happen to these children
if there were a fire?

Prestley, who grew up in Groton, does a service in decrying those conditions
at the school. Many state politicians are publicly agreeing with her, but
don't let them fool you. Those in power have long known about the appalling
conditions at Long Lane for years. Gov. John G. Rowland got a tour of the
facilitry early in his first term. Any number of legislators have also
gotten tours.

So why hasn't anything been done?

Recently, Prestley requested a tour of Long Lane in response to the suicide
of one 15-year-old and subsequent suicide attempts of other teens
incarcerated there. Key to improving conditions, Prestley said, is an
upgrade of mental health services.

She's right. The mental-health services for juveniles could be better at
Long Lane. Practically everything could be better at Long Lane.

But let's get specific.

The vast majority of the juvenile delinquents at Long Lane ere sent there
because they were using drugs, dealing in drugs, or selling drugs. Many also
had alcohol problems.

State officials say 70 percent of male inmates and 85 percent of the female
inmates have a history of drug or alcohol abuse. A University of
Connecticut study estimated that at least 52 percent of the teens in Long
Lane needed drug treatment.

So does Long Lane deal effecticely with the kids' drug involvement?

Nope. The institution has no in-house drug-treatment program.

This, despite the pervasive and proven link in medical literature going back
to 1830 between abuse of alcohol and drugs and suicide attemps.

Given that suicide at Long Lane has landed the facility in the news, the
lack of drug treatment at Long Lane is quite incredible.

So does Long Lane enroll kids in outside drug treatment? Only a handful of
teens get such help, in comparison to the number experiencing drug problems.

Long Lane used to have a cottage where drug treatment of youth could take
place. But it was funded with federal dollars, and when the money ran out,
the program stopped.

Spokesman John Wiltse, of the state Department of Children and Families,
says two of the staff at Long Lane are clinical substance-abuse counselors.
And they will be able to supervise counseling at the institution once other
staff members are trained to be substance-abuse supervisors. Wiltse says
the goal is to have one certified counselor for each eight inmates with
problems. But it would likely take two to three years to certify the staff
members.

So what happens in the meantime?

The youthful inmates with intensive drug problems are referred to
residential facilities outside Long Lane, but that occurs only if HMO's
approve the treatment, Wiltse says. Currently, some 48 inmates out of a
population of 230 are in such programs.

To fail to address drug problems when more then three-quarters of the inmate
population is diagnosed with those issues is bad policy. There's no other
word for it. Even a neophyte with a modicum of common sense could see that
DCF is failing to prescribe a treatment that will deal with the problem. By
doing so, it is ignoring one to the root causes of these young people's
anti-social behavior.

According to Prestley, Long Lane didn't even have Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings or Narcotics Anonymous meetings available to the troubled youth -
meetings which are absolutely free and often effective.

The determined see-no-evil-hear-no-evil attitude concerning the
substance-abuse problem among teens at Long Lane isn't merely short-sighted
on the part of DCF.

Even treating the kids for depression while ignoring the drug abuse in their
backgrounds would be a waste of money. Ignoring the drug problem makes it
more likely, not less, that many at-risk kids at Long lane will continue to
attempt suicide. And some, sadly, may just succeed.

To paraphrase James Carville, it's the drugs, Stupid.

Checked-by: Don Beck