Community Intervention Center offers life-changing lessons

The boy is about to enter the juvenile secure room of the Community Intervention Center. On this day the room is empty. Some days it's filled with students sent from school or picked up off the streets for crimes ranging from ditching school to dealing drugs.

“The paddy wagon came and dropped 42 students off all at once because they were all in a huge gang fight at school,” said Cynthia Gahl, CIC program director. “Sometimes you're able to reach them on their first visit and it straightens them out.

“Other times you just know you will be seeing them again, either here or on the news.”

Youth crime rising

Nearly 1,900 juveniles passed through the Community Intervention Center, 201 NE 50, last year. Since it opened in 1997, staff members say they've seen youth crime skyrocket in the Oklahoma City area.

The Community Intervention Center — a program of Youth Services for Oklahoma County Inc. — is under contract with the Oklahoma City Police Department to provide a safe holding facility for juveniles with misdemeanor and lesser felony charges.

Debra Forshee, president and CEO of Youth Services, said the program gives youth a taste of what a detention center is like and serves as a warning for them to clean up their act. It also gives police officers a safe place to drop off juveniles so they can get back to patrolling the streets.

Juveniles can be held at the facility for up to 24 hours, which allows parents to let them sit and think about things. Community Intervention Center staffers sometimes have to tell parents and guardians that they must pick up their children before the 24-hour period ends, Forshee said.

“We have some parents who are so fed up that they say ‘You have them, you keep them,'” she said. “We then remind them about child abandonment charges and they usually come, but you can really tell with some of these parents that they are just at their wits end. They just don't know what to do anymore.”