This is a frightening situation in my area

Reba

Reba

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This place is only 2.2 miles from my house:

4 escapees only had to scale fence | The Post and Courier, Charleston SC - News, Sports, Entertainment

Teen escapee remains at large | The Post and Courier, Charleston SC - News, Sports, Entertainment

:eek3:

I drive past that place twice a day when I commute.

On either side of that center are residential care centers for elderly people. Across the street are apartments and professional/medical offices. On the same block is a hospital and retirement residences.

The website for the center says it's for youth ages 12-17. The escapee is 19 years old, 6'2" tall! He has a history of violence (attempted murder). That's more than a troubled little kid. Also, he's been off his meds for at least four days now.

Summerville, SC facilities of Palmetto Lowcountry Behavioral Health ? Charleston, SC Mental Health Services- Depression, Substance Abuse treatment & Mental Illness
 
Wow! Stay safe, and keep your doors and windows locked when you drive past. That doesn't sound like the best location for a troubled youth detention center, does it?

We have a similar situation here (D.C. area). A teenage boy - well, nearly an adult - attacked and beat a guard unconscious, and escaped from the facility. He is still on the loose, too, although his companion who helped in the beating decided not to make a run for it and did not escape.
 
Beach girl said:
Wow! Stay safe, and keep your doors and windows locked when you drive past. That doesn't sound like the best location for a troubled youth detention center, does it?
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I always keep my vehicle locked up no matter where I drive.

I can't imagine why they picked that location.

We have a similar situation here (D.C. area). A teenage boy - well, nearly an adult - attacked and beat a guard unconscious, and escaped from the facility. He is still on the loose, too, although his companion who helped in the beating decided not to make a run for it and did not escape.
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That's bad. It's also weird. The guy that they're searching for here is originally from DC. They shipped him here for treatment.
 
What would be a "good" location for a facility like that?
 
Ah. They do that a lot. There was one youth detention and treatment center in D.C. that had so many problems they closed it down. Now people who would have been placed there are being sent to places like North and South Carolina, even as far as Georgia, I think.

Too bad because family and community support is essential to get these kids back on the right track. By sending them so far away, it's difficult for families to stay in touch.

'course some of the families are the reason the kids got in serious trouble in the first place, so getting them away from their families is not always a bad idea.

I hope they find this guy.

Know what you mean about always driving with windows and doors locked. I do too, other than when I'm driving top-down in the convertible. Doors are still locked, though.

Glenn slipped - I'd think a good location would not be right next to a facility for the elderly. It is hard to find a perfect location, that's for sure.
 
I understand everyone's concern, but if this young man was going to commit violence while he was away from the facility, chances are extremely high that it would have already occurred.

Since we don't know what he is being treated for or what his treatment plan is, we don't know whether he even has a disorder that would require meds, so it is jumping the gun to assume he has been off his meds for 4 days. If he is medicated for a psychotic disorder, without his meds he no doubt is more a danger to himself than to others.

While it is of concern that he so easily walked away from the facility, he no doubt had progressed far enough in his treatment to have demonstrated behaviors that allowed him the priviledge of being out on the grounds. That is standard for all mental health facilities, whether juvenile or adult. Since he was sent from Washington, D.C. as an out of state placement, it would be safe to assume that his mental health was more of a priority than his criminal behavior, or he would have been kept in a detention center. Trust me, the justice system is not fond of sending any offender to a forensic psych unit.

Like I said, I understand the concern, but really don't think there is a need for panic.
 
jillio said:
Where it is. Located close to a hospital. They are dealing with ill patients.
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It is surrounded by elderly housing. The hospital is down the street. It's mostly a residential area with some professional buildings (doctors, dentists, lawyers) near.
 
Glenn said:
What would be a "good" location for a facility like that?
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Not next door to a nursing home and retirement housing. I mean right next door. There is no green space separating them.

They only recently added the lattice on top of the six-foot privacy fence. There is no security fencing except for the drive-thru gate, which is electronic.
 
jillio said:
Where it is. Located close to a hospital. They are dealing with ill patients.
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Mentally ill violent patients who have been convicted of felonies and are on the sexual predator lists.
 
I don't know if this will show up right. Anyway, the deeper facility in the middle of the picture, at the top of the screen, the one with the parking area in the front, that is the treatment facility. The facilities you see on either side are the elderly complexes. The hospital is down the street, to the right of the screen.

There is no real separation, side to side. There are woods (great for hiding in), behind them. More apartments and houses beyond the woods.

As I hope you can see, there is no security to the area.

Maps | Ask.com
 
The places for the elderly are the smaller, single-story, flat buildings to the right? (At least they look flat and single-story, from that aerial picture.)

Yeah, that's a bit close. If I were looking for a place for elderly parents, that would give me cause for concern.
 
Beach girl said:
The places for the elderly are the smaller, single-story, flat buildings to the right? (At least they look flat and single-story, from that aerial picture.)

Yeah, that's a bit close. If I were looking for a place for elderly parents, that would give me cause for concern.
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I'm not sure which image you're getting because each time I click on the link to check it, it looks different. :dunno:

In the image that it's supposed to be, the elderly assisted living is one on the left, and one on the right of the youth center. (There are two elderly assisted living centers.) The youth center is set back more from the road, and sets further back into the woods. The two elderly facilities have square courtyards in the middle.

The large buildings to the far right are the medical center.

The houses to the far left are "retirement village" style patio homes.
 
If the youth is that troubled, he should have been in a prison for criminals with mental illness, in an attached juvenile ward.
 
Bottesini said:
If the youth is that troubled, he should have been in a prison for criminals with mental illness, in an attached juvenile ward.
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Agreed. He should have also been incarcerated in his own area instead being sent to our state. Apparently it's a big business now, to take patients and prisoners from other states for a fee.
 
Yes, he should have been. I don't know if you read the original article that Reba linked to. There are a lot of comments saying exactly that, with the people of SC being pretty irate that Washington, D.C. (where this guy is from) is shipping these offenders to other places, which make a profit on having a high "bed count."

D.C. closed down a treatment/detention center for offenders in this category a while ago - I think maybe a year or two ago. So these guys are getting shipped all over the place, mostly to states in the south, which for some is probably a good idea because it gets them away from the environment that led to their problems in the first place.

However, it looks like this particular low-security facility was not the best place to send someone who is already charged with attempted murder, is older than the population for whom the facility was designed, and has more serious problems all-around than what they are set up to handle.

(Reba slipped, with the same point.)
 
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