New program to help keep teens out of trouble

By LEE HIGGINS and ISHMAEL TATE - lhiggins@thestate.com itate@thestate.com

Lexington County Sheriff’s Detective Terry Hall is working full time to keep children on track — and, ideally, out of prison.

Hall is the linchpin of the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative — a joint effort between the state Department of Juvenile Justice and the sheriff’s department to keep troubled youths out of jail.

The month-old program targets nonviolent offenders such as truants or runaways who are disconnected from their family and school life, but still have an opportunity to get it together.

Hall works to keep them off drugs, away from gangs, in school — and out of DJJ’s detention centers.

“You can’t just warehouse them,” Hall said. “They’re young people; they’re going to make mistakes.”

DJJ and the sheriff’s department split the cost, with each paying $30,000 a year.

Hall, a juvenile detention case manager, gets help for teenagers, including alternative placements like wilderness camps, counseling and therapeutic foster care.

He teaches deputies that they can place children in programs, rather than arresting them for minor offenses.

The children Hall works with often start getting off track when they don’t do homework and break household rules, he said. Soon, they’re smoking cigarettes and skipping school.

The next thing you know, they’re sent to in-school suspension, then suspended and finally wind up as dropouts.

These kids on the edge are ripe for recruitment into gangs, Hall said.

“Gangs are appealing to kids because they say, ‘No matter what you do, we love you. It doesn’t matter you’re not good in school. Just go out and commit this crime.’”

By the time the teenagers realize they’ve traded their parents’ rules for gang rules, their new friends have gotten them in trouble and it’s too late.

“If I had a nickel for every time someone in prison said to me, ‘If I could just turn back time and listen to my parents,’” Hall said.

Hall primarily helps children ages 11 to 17.

He’s a former school resource officer at Pelion High and has coached youth sports, including football, basketball and baseball.

Hall also worked at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Estill, and at Broad River Correctional Institution, a maximum-security state prison on Broad River Road.

Lexington County Sheriff James Metts hopes the program will “lead children in the right direction” — toward positive influences, rather than the negative influences they find in jail, which can turn them into hardened criminals.

A similar program started in Spartanburg County more than a year ago and Berkeley County two months ago.

So far, Hall has helped dozens of students, said Karen Buddin, interim county director for the Lexington County office of DJJ.

“He honestly believes that every child has a chance, should be given a chance,” Buddin said. “He believes they can turn around, and no, they don’t all have to go to jail.

“If someone’s having trouble, he can intervene in the front end. Hopefully, law enforcement never has to see that child.”

Reach Higgins at (803) 771-8570; Tate at (803) 771-8549.