News With Stacey Page | Mid Northern Indiana News

Pierceton Woods Academy is supposed to be a benefit for Kosciusko County’s juvenile justice system, but just how beneficial is it?
     Built in June 2006, the juvenile detention center and residential program for troubled boys has been both a blessing and a burden. Even its administrators admit that there are some elements that are likely troubling to both local police agencies and taxpayers, but the center’s strict licensing regulations determines what actions the Pierceton Woods Academy staffers can and cannot take.
     The academy is part of the Lifeline Youth and Family Services faith-based organization based out of Fort Wayne which was founded in 1971. Locally, the organization took over Riverwood Ranch in Warsaw and what was formerly known as Byer Manor near Etna Green, both which were only facilities for boys. Since Lifeline took them over, however, they have turned both of those facilities into residential program houses for girls. They have maintained the Riverwood Ranch name and location, but the Byer Manor is now known as Stoney Point.
     As for the Pierceton Woods Academy, though, it’s still basically a brand new facility providing both residential and detention facilities for boys only. Vice President of Development Mike Martin explains that the facility operates under three state authorities, those being the Indiana Department of Education, the Department of Child and Family Services, and the Indiana Department of Corrections.
     “Our DCS license says we must be a nonrestraint, hands-off facility. If kids run away, we cannot physically stop them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t walk or drive alongside them and try to talk them into coming back, but we are not allowed to restrain them in any way.”
     And that’s where the frustration of local law enforcement comes into play.  
     Officers from the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department, Pierceton Police Department, and any other law enforcement agency where a runaway may be headed, are the only ones with authority to apprehend the juveniles and return them to the residential facility once a juvenile court judge has placed them there. “I know the frustration they must feel and, as a taxpayer myself I know I’d rather have the police out looking for meth labs than runaways, but it’s just how our licensing rules are and the state is very strict about that,” Martin explained.
     On the contrary though, Pierceton Woods Academy is also the only local juvenile detention center so police agencies that often had to transfer juvenile delinquents to facilities in Fort Wayne or South Bend, now have a much closer facility.
     The detention side of the facility includes locked quarters very similar to any county jail. Up to a dozen boys can be housed at any one time and they are sentenced to the facility from all over Indiana, although Kosciusko, Whitley and Noble counties use the services the most.
     Boys ordered to detention at Pierceton Woods Academy are charged $110 per day and the counties that sentence them to lock-up are responsible for that bill. Boys sent to the residential facility are charged as much as $240 per day, which the state pays for through tax dollars. At all of Lifeline’s facilities, the juveniles attend classes and are required to take part in programs that address their particular needs and/or problems. “We’re faith-based, but that isn’t shoved down anyone’s throat,” Martin noted. “We do, however, teach morals and values in all of the programs.”
     Tony Fingerle is the vice president of residential services and added, “We try to change the way they think.” Noting that the common denominator most of the boys at the facility have are anger management, he said programs are designed to show them alternative ways to deal with anger rather than acting out or destroying property, which may have gotten them sentenced to the facility in the first place.
     In the residential side, Pierceton can house up to 48 boys between the ages of about 10 and 17 years old. “Those are boys who typically are known as C.H.I.N.S. or children in need of services.” Martin explained, “They are usually kids who have been abused or neglected or who made some poor decisions and got in some trouble but haven’t committed any serious, violent type of crimes.” And, those are the boys who cannot be detained and who, on occasion, choose to run away from the facility.
     Fingerle said those few boys who do choose to run from the facility are always returned and usually learn pretty quickly that they will always be coming back and, if their behavior continues, they will end up under a court’s order to Boys School until the age of 18.
     “We have one there already who learned the hard way,” Fingerle said, and another now serving time in the detention center suffering from a bad case of frost bite because of his attempt to run away. “But most of the boys are here because they have no where else to go and they are loved. They have a chance to make it here.”
     Martin explained that the runaways are the ones who make headlines, but it’s the majority of the boys at the center who fly under the media radar for their good deeds. “For example,” Martin revealed, “last fall some of the boys went into the woods and collected sticks. They used them to built soccer goals and played in the retention pond area that is usually bone dry.” What came of that was a soccer team and even a match against Lakeland Christian School’s team. When a new gymnasium on the campus is completed later this year, Pierceton Woods Academy hopes to add basketball, volleyball and other intramurual sports – and maybe even some more sports teams.
     Though the Pierceton Woods Academy team didn’t win last fall’s soccer match, Martin said it proves that the boys who come to the facility already labeled by society, have abilities, goals and desires to be good citizens.
“They also volunteered to help ring bells for The Salvation Army over Christmas and helped an older lady to her car. These are kids who have a chance.”
     To learn more about Pierceton Woods Academy and all of the Lifeline Youth and Family Services programs, log on to www.lifelineyouth.org.

Related posts:

• ISP hosting law enforcement camp for youth
• Area police agency reports
• Youth workshops at Wagon Wheel
• Kosciusko, Elkhart counties bookings
• Past 911 dispatchers speaking out against center director