BY NANCY KIDD

Detention is a cold institution where kids have little privacy and where they don’t make a move without getting permission from a staff member. Kids have no access to cell phones, the internet, or any type of social media. Television viewing is limited and closely monitored. Their meals, prepared by inmates at the nearby county jail, consist of a lot of white bread, beans, and rice.

Knowing all this, it is unbelievable anyone would ever deliberately want to return to detention, yet that is precisely what happened.

When Devon* first came to the juvenile detention center (JDC), he was a total mess. I’m sure that “on the outside” this boy could display as much attitude and swagger as any other teenage boy. However, as a newbie in this locked facility, he didn’t even try to fake an air of machismo.

Alone in his cell and missing his family, he wailed loudly for days and nights on end. He was utterly miserable, and he didn’t seem to care who heard him. He was inconsolable, his loud, continuous crying making it difficult for other kids to sleep.

Days passed and, at long last, Devon’s tears began to subside.

Finally, one day he showed up in class. He appeared reticent and subdued at first, his eyes still slightly bloodshot and puffy. He studied the other students carefully and took his cues from their behavior.

In time, he began to relax and to join in class activities. Eventually, he even started smiling—a little timidly at first.

At some point, I marveled to glimpse an ear-to-ear grin plastered on his face, something that quickly became a regular feature of his appearance. He continued to evolve, performing “The Birdie Song” enthusiastically and participating in all school activities with eagerness.

He began to display an unmistakable sense of pride, pride I believe, in what he was learning academically as well as pride in the more capable, confident version of himself he was growing into. How could this be the same boy?

Like his fellow students and the students who had come before him, Devon got used to the routine and made the most of his situation.

He became more familiar with the staff, adults who engaged him in games of checkers, taught him chess, and were always ready to listen. From the respectful treatment he experienced, he seemed to understand a lot of people outside his family were rooting for his success.

His court hearings were scheduled every couple weeks, but things did not progress quickly.

There was one continuance after another as mental health workers, attorneys, and the judge all worked together to determine what should happen to him next. Before it was all over, he had spent a few months in detention. Finally, the day of his sentencing arrived. Since it had been his first offense, he was placed on probation and immediately released at court to his grandmother.

What a happy result!

All of us who had known him and worked with him were thrilled—that is until … the local police brought him back later that night. What in the world would possess a healthy teenage boy to want to return to a locked detention facility?

Yes indeed, he apparently really did want to come back to JDC because he went to the police station shortly after 11 that first night. Determined to turn himself in, he told the officers to take him to JDC because he was out past curfew and had just violated his probation.

We could only speculate why. Was Devon afraid he couldn’t adhere to the rules of his probation? Was the bright and involved young man concerned he couldn’t resist the temptations of peer pressure on the outside? Was he worried he wouldn’t have the kind of adult support he had felt while he was in detention?

Or, was it possible that the life he’d become accustomed to inside that cold institution suddenly felt safer and more comforting than his life in the outside world?

* Name changed.