- [Announcer] This episode contains discussion of child sexual abuse, which could be triggering to some viewers.

Help is available by calling or texting 988.

- Kids got PTSD 'cause of what he witnessed when he was, you know, two and three years old.

And you know, that's what led us down this road.

We knew that there was going to be a different path for him compared to the girls.

- Families are often desperate to get help and support.

They love the their children, they want them to be whole and well, but they don't always have the answers.

And that's where unfortunately the system has to get involved in one way or another.

- Diversion is this really special opportunity to make sure that only kids that really need to go into the criminal justice system go into it.

- You know, one size doesn't fit all.

Give the authorities the leeway to evaluate a kid on a case by case basis.

- [Announcer] Philosophies around juvenile justice have changed in South Dakota, but resources are still limited.

Trauma and juvenile justice, that's tonight's South Dakota focus.

(gentle music) - [Announcer 1] This is a production of SDPD.

(gentle music) (air whooshing) (gentle music) - [Announcer] We've spent this season learning about childcare, preschool and teacher shortages.

And during these conversations there's one topic that's come up over and over.

Experts are seeing a rise in antisocial and violent behavior.

It starts as young as preschool.

Nicole Weiss with the Rapid City YMCA says they've had to start kicking kids out of their program.

- In the last two years, we've decided that we have to be a little bit more aggressive with it because we're burning our staff out.

This is from being attacked yesterday.

- [Announcer] It wasn't always like this.

- Five years ago we had two or three kids in the classroom with some hard behaviors and by hard behaviors, like ones that we could still work through, we might have one that we're making a referral to.

I'm not exaggerating saying we have six or seven hard behaviors in every classroom right now.

And by hard behaviors I'm saying like, like throwing chairs, like attacking teachers running out of the classroom.

- [Announcer] Those behaviors are contributing to staff burnout for K-12 teachers as well.

That's according to the South Dakota Education Association's Sandra Waltman.

- I think sometimes there is this perception that behavioral issues are at the like middle school and high school level, but we're seeing, you know, kids have outbursts starting, you know, kindergarten, first, second grade.

And really it comes down to, you know, families and communities needing more mental health support.

- [Announcer] Sioux Falls high school teacher, Gina Benz sees the shift too.

- I know at the lower levels, more and more students are throwing tantrums or showing some very anti community antisocial behaviors that can be very disruptive to other students' learning that can be alarming to teachers.

- [Announcer] In the Pennington County State's attorney's office, juvenile diversion director Kim Morsching connects the more recent rise in behavior issues to the lingering impact of the pandemic.

- We are seeing more young people getting in trouble for fighting at school, things like that.

And, but we've seen this for a couple of years now.

I see a lot since COVID, I see a lot of things that I would call dysregulation.

An inability to interact with a fellow human being.

An inability to work to regulate yourself in a situation that feels like it's getting outta hand for you.

A lot of anxiety, depression, things like that.

- [Announcer] We learned in our previous episode on child trauma that childhood hardships can impact how the brain develops.

And the COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges for kids of all ages and backgrounds.

Amy Elliott with the Avera Research Institute explains.

- COVID, wow!

Turned a lot of things on its head, didn't it?

Now that we're able to kind of look back and see some of the pros and cons of different mitigation strategies that at the time everybody was just doing the best we could to, to make those recommendations.

But it did have an impact on kids and socialization and on families and on the stress.

And we're seeing that in a few of our studies as well.

So we're seeing an increase, for example, in mood disorders, especially amongst adolescents and then behavioral outbursts and things like that in the younger kids as well.

- [Announcer] But recent studies are also showing a kid's home life made a difference in how they weathered school closures and other pandemic related issues.

- In fact, we've even heard from some families that it brought them closer together in some ways.

And what we found through that study is the families really do matter and the structure and environment they were able to provide at that point in time really did help create some resiliency and even some positive growth development during a very, very trying time.

That being said though, not all families are able to do that from socioeconomic status from other family members available.

So there is a lot of challenges that I think we're gonna continue to see for the next couple of years.

- [Announcer] The State of South Dakota Children's Wellbeing Report released last fall includes data on dozens of metrics related to young people.

One survey asked parents of children ages three to 17 if a health or education professional told them their child had a behavioral problem.

In 2020, a little more than 6% of South Dakota respondents said yes.

By 2021, that number went up to nearly 9%, a touch above the national rate.

It'll take time to see if that upward tick remains consistent in the post pandemic years.

(gentle music) - We can't blame all the recent juvenile misbehavior on the pandemic, but it is a factor we can all relate to.

There are a lot of things that can impact a kid's mental health and the decisions they make.

Understanding the range of those traumas can help us know how to respond and how to build better support systems for those kids and their families.

I'm at one of those families in Huron.

- [Announcer] Ben Chase is a reporter for the Huron Plainsman.

Marie, his wife runs a childcare business out of their home.

They knew early on they wanted to be foster parents and eventually adopt.

They adopted four children from foster care and three are biological siblings.

10-year-old Brooklyn is a bit shy but 9-year-old Zaylee and her 11-year-old sister December are a little more comfortable in front of the camera.

- Take our autographs.

- [Jackie] You could say you knew me before I was famous.

- You knew me.

I could say that to Miss Ms.McWhorter, my teacher.

- [Jackie] Yeah.

- You knew me before I was famous.

- [Announcer] The Chases also adopted the girl's older brother.

He's 12 and now attends a residential treatment program out of town.

We're going to call him L to protect his privacy.

The girls talk about what they like to do at school and their memories of being in foster care.

Do you remember when you first came to this house?

- I'm pretty sure I was like three and a half.

- Two.

- Two and a half.

- [Jackie] Oh yeah.

You were little.

- Yeah.

- I dunno.

She can speak for herself.

She has a mouth for a reason.

(laughs) - [Jackie] Well I don't even know what I remember from being like two years old.

- I do.

I remember I was inside a house with a brother and not even a sister yet, so I'm sorry you weren't born.

- I know.

- And so like it was terrible because like our mom wouldn't feed us, she wouldn't do anything.

- When Ben and Marie Chase first learned about the siblings, they knew L would need more support since he had clearer memories of his birth home.

- So we said, you know, we should at least get him started with some sort of therapy.

And he went in and the counseling worked really well for him.

- [Announcer] L was treated for post-traumatic stress and ADHD and he seemed to be doing well until they found him sexually violating another child.

- Would've been October of 21.

He, one of Marie's daycare children he violated on.

And we caught it and saw that there was something going on and caught that and we got the police involved, we got DSS involved.

We got made sure, you know, we weren't hiding anything there.

Part of Marie being allowed to continue daycare stuff through the DSS and review on things was that he needed to have a behavioral program set up so that he could kind of earn that ability to be not so much unsupervised, but to be minimally supervised with daycare children around.

And so we worked toward that and it was in the process of doing that, that he really started to fight against that and eventually really fought against being in the house.

- [Announcer] Over the next several months, Elle's behavior got more destructive, kicking, punching, starting fires in his room, self-harming and threats against the rest of the family.

The Chase family needed options, but between L's young age and the severity of his behavior, they had limited options.

- Well, and it was nine when it started and that was the big issue.

Nine years old you couldn't find anywhere at nine because you can't even charge it as anything because he was only nine.

But if he had been 10, they would be able to charge something.

And.

- It wasn't for lack of turning stuff over to police.

I mean we, when he wanted to burn the house down, we turned that into police when you know, the police were involved when he was committed three different times as a danger to himself or others.

And police were involved with either transport there or transport from our house to the hospital so he could be checked out even if we would've had him in the system.

He was too young to have been out at.

You know, we have our home just a few miles away from us here, but he wouldn't.

And you know, with the sexual history background, that would've been an appropriate placement.

But they don't start until 12.

- [Announcer] Other organizations either refused to work with L because of his aggression or because of his previous sexual behavior.

The Chase family maintained contact with the Department of Social Services throughout the process.

At one point the family faced an unthinkable option.

- The thing that we ran into multiple times, which frustrates us still.

And we've talked with other foster parents about this and other adoptive parents that we were told, well if you guys give up your rights to him and he's back in the system, we can do different things with him.

That was not okay in our book.

We were not going to do that.

That's our son.

- Yeah, he's our son and be it who's he gonna work to get better for if we were to terminate, but that he's our son.

- [Announcer] Another option was a residential treatment program for kids with emotional and behavioral problems.

Eventually a spot opened up at Aurora Plains Academy in Plankinton.

It's a privately run facility owned by a corporation based in Wisconsin.

It offers treatment for mood disorders, sexual abuse, and other issues for young people.

It's also been the subject of complaints for its treatment of residents in the past.

But for the Chases it was the best option available for their son and the rest of their family.

- My mom had taken our kids and the other three and Zaylee made the comment to her as she was driving them back into town to us that, you know, "I'm scared he's going to kill us."

You know, she's at that point seven having to think about the idea that your brother is going to kill you.

- The Chase family knew their son would need specialized support for his traumatic past, but they couldn't have predicted the severity of his behavior or how difficult it would be to find the level of support that he truly needed.

Tifanie Petro is the Director of Child and Family Services with Children's Home Society.

It's a nonprofit that offers residential treatment for young children and other resources.

- We're seeing higher levels of violence in the cases that are getting referred for our services here.

- [Announcer] When I tell her about L'S story, she's quick to dispel a common misconception about children who act out sexually.

- Children who have been sexually harmed, whether that's by another youth or by an adult, are no more statistically likely to go on and re-offend themselves.

Often society wants to jump to, oh, they must have been abused themselves, or if a child was a victim of sexual abuse that they're going to then become a perpetrator of those sexual based crimes and that's just doesn't hold out in the research.

- [Announcer] Instead she says there's a stronger correlation between sexual abuse and witnessing other kinds of violence in the home.

There's a shortage of mental health professionals in South Dakota, but there are even fewer who tackle child sex abuse cases.

- We know from the research that keeping children in their communities connected to their families of origin, connecting to resources.

That's gonna be the most healing path possible.

But when you don't have an outpatient counselor or the need is more severe, then we have to look at inpatient residential treatment.

And I think we maybe have one facility in South Dakota that really excels or has, you know, the specialized skills and staff to take these type of youth.

And unfortunately a lot of our youth end up the more, the higher level of needs that they have, they often end up getting placed outta state.

- [Announcer] That was another possibility for Ben and Marie Chase's son before the spot opened at Aurora Plains Academy in Plankinton.

- Kids got PTSD 'cause of what he witnessed when he was, you know, two and three years old.

And you know, that's what led us down this road.

We knew that there was going to be a different path for him compared to the girls.

- There's not one organic orientation point for these types of issues, but we can certainly start to see a pattern about how adversity in those early formative years starts to play into those negative and sometimes illegal activities later on.

- [Announcer] The impact of childhood trauma doesn't protect young people from facing the consequences of their actions.

In South Dakota, juveniles can be charged with offenses starting at age 10.

During his time as state's attorney in Jones and Haakon County's Attorney General Marty Jackley handled juvenile cases.

- I think every case needs to be evaluated differently, both the juvenile and what their history may be and how their grades are, what their home life is.

Those are all considerations that play into that.

- [Announcer] That nuance hasn't always played a role in South Dakota's approach to juvenile justice.

Former governor Bill Janklow made no secret of the impact his time in the Marine Corps had on him as a young man.

He applied a similar philosophy to juvenile delinquents, giving the state's Department of Corrections, the authority to place juveniles in bootcamp style detention centers in the 90s.

But that approach wouldn't last.

- Really since the Gina Score incident.

There's been a movement of the state away from that.

- [Announcer] In 1999, a 14-year-old girl named Gina Score died of heat stroke during a forced run at the girls' facility in Plankinton.

It made national headlines and brought increased scrutiny to the extreme treatment methods.

Janklow maintained the bootcamps worked, but by the following summer, the girls' facility in Plankinton had closed and detentions in the remaining bootcamp in Custer dropped year by year.

By the time Dennis Daugaard was in office, South Dakota had the second highest youth incarceration rate in the country.

Governor Daugaard presented his rationale for juvenile reform in his 2015 State of the State address.

- South Dakota's juvenile violent crime arrest rate is one third the national average.

So we've got a violent crime rate with juveniles one third of the national average and yet the national average would second highest state in the nation for locking up or putting juveniles in the hands of the Department of Corrections.

Our juvenile incarceration rate should encourage us to act, but another encouragement is cost.

- [Announcer] At that time, Daugaard told lawmakers juvenile detention programs cost anywhere from $41,000 to $144,000 a year for each participant.

Treating children at home was both more effective, and less expensive to the State.

- So this leads to a couple of obvious questions.

Are there youth sent to the Department of Corrections who could be better served in their communities and can we save money and hold youth accountable while keeping more of them in their own homes?

- [Announcer] The policy initiative resulted in Senate Bill 73, which became law in 2015.

It established sentencing protocols that prioritized residential treatment for more severe offenses and expanded diversion options in an effort to keep low-offending juveniles out of the criminal system altogether.

Youth incarceration went down as intended but local services couldn't keep up with the new demand.

- I think it was very well intended and we've seen some positive effects from what was done with Senate Bill 73.

But again, there needed to be some additional funding that didn't come.

Some of it's come now.

There needed to be, I think some more tools in the toolbox for educators as well as for law enforcement in the court system for those troubled kids that were still not ready to throw away yet, but are gonna perhaps need some more supervision.

- [Announcer] Some felt the reform carried too few penalties for repeat offenders.

Lawmakers made adjustments to the Daugaard Era reform during last year's legislative session.

- It's kind of a three-strikes over a twelve month period.

It originally was six months.

Over a twelve month period, then there can be some additional consequences.

I've never been in favor of a three strikes rule or a five strikes rule because I, again, I think when it comes to juveniles you need to look at what is, you know, what is their history?

Have they been good?

Is something changed in their home life?

Is there a divorce situation?

Is there perhaps a mental illness there?

I think you have to look at all of those factors and you don't do that with a numbering system or a three strikes law.

- [Announcer] State-run detention centers are a thing of the past, for now.

The STAR Academy in Custer closed in 2015.

It was the last vestige of the Janklow-era boot-camp approach to juvenile reform.

While he understands the reasoning, Jackley thinks removing any kind of state facility is an overcorrection that lands more serious offenders farther from home.

- We used to have a facility in the state that was designated for those kids that the parents weren't working, the education system wasn't working and they had really surpassed the low level of what the law enforcement and the judicial system could could do.

So at this point we don't have that available through the Department of Corrections or not like we used to.

We oftentimes have to resort to outta state, which has gotten extremely costly.

There have been different private organizations that have even talked to me as Attorney General.

The problem with that is a private organization doesn't have sovereign immunity or liability protections that the state has.

And there's just some programs because of that the state needs to run - [Announcer] With attention on the construction of new adult prisons.

It's unlikely a state juvenile facility will return anytime soon.

Instead, the no administration presented a funding increase for early intervention diversion services.

During this year's legislative session, Kristi Bunkers, the Director of Juvenile Services within the State Department of Corrections, testified in favor of increased reimbursement to counties for each successful youth diversion.

She told lawmakers more than 12,000 young people have avoided entering the formal justice system for low level alcohol, drug and truancy offenses.

In the eight years her department has offered reimbursements.

- We know that one of the greatest predictors of adult incarceration is juvenile incarceration.

And this bill aims to prioritize public funds for proven programs that reduce offending and support our next generation, rather than putting them on a path towards the adult criminal justice system.

- [Announcer] Pennington County State's attorney, Lara Roetzel also spoke in favor of the funding increase.

She started her career as a juvenile prosecutor more than 25 years ago.

- The decision about whether a young person should go into the criminal justice system is something that I'm really passionate about and I just very strongly feel that not every young person should go into the criminal justice system.

And diversion is this really special opportunity to make sure that only kids that really need to go into the criminal justice system go into it.

And the reason that's important is because statistics have shown that once a kid goes into the criminal justice system, they usually don't get out of it.

- [Announcer] The Pennington County website lists offenses like shoplifting, truancy, and disorderly conduct as typical diversion eligible offenses.

Diversion will often include some kind of counseling or class instruction to address the root cause of behavior.

That's especially true when drugs and alcohol are a factor.

Roetzel says many families can't afford those services on their own.

- Even online classes can be really expensive.

You know, some of them are $300, $600 to do online classes.

Well, I can't tell a kid, "Alright, I want you to go through diversion, but I want you to take a class where you're going to learn how to make better choices and it's gonna cost you $600."

Well, that family doesn't have $600, so they can't complete their diversion 'cause they don't have the money to like that.

They can't fail just because they didn't have the money to do it.

- [Announcer] In 2023, Pennington County saw 669 young people enter some kind of diversion program.

87% completed their program successfully and avoided entering the juvenile justice system.

- When you look at how much money you would spend to incarcerate an adult in a prison, doesn't even begin to compare.

If we can do early intervention on a young person and that eventually leads to them not going to prison as an adult, I mean, it's just such easy math.

- [Announcer] Lawmakers agreed and passed a bill increasing the state's reimbursement rate from $250 per successful diversion two $750.

Based on last year's numbers in Pennington County, that's a bump from $145,000 to more than 430,000.

Attorney General Marty Jackley says it's a step in the right direction.

- So there was a significant increase of funding that was needed really early on in that program and it didn't come.

So that's a really good thing.

- [Announcer] But in rural parts of the state, counties might see a handful of diversion cases a year instead of hundreds.

It's hard to run a robust diversion program on a few thousand dollars.

- Rapid City has invested in a juvenile diversion program that's very significant.

Some of our smaller counties simply don't have those resources, and so you have to, you treat those different cases differently.

- [Announcer] Other diversion programs are supported by grant funding and community partnerships.

One example is the just US Mural Project or JUMP Program in Rapid City.

Late last year, the Pennington County State's Attorney's office was one of five programs in the country to receive a $50,000 grant from the US Department of Justice.

The grant supports art programming for at-risk youth.

Young people serving time at the Regional Juvenile Detention Center designed the Murals.

They're painted by juveniles working through a diversion program.

The three completed so far are on display at the Dahl Arts Center in downtown Rapid City.

Kim Morsching Director of Diversion for Pennington County, says the grant application came after the success of previous arts programming.

- We had incredible outcomes, like shockingly incredible outcomes like young.

There were people who never got into trouble again.

We never saw their names again.

It meant a lot to young people to create an idea and put it on a Canvas.

People who don't identify as artists now saw themselves an entirely new light and we had great outcomes.

So we're hoping we'll be keeping the data and we're hoping for the same things - [Announcer] The grant program will last through next year and support the creation 17 murals.

With the help of hundreds of young people, Morsching knows not everyone is sold on these kinds of programs.

- Some of those more unusual ways, people have a hard time understanding how successful they are because they think that it's a, we're rewarding young people for their poor behavior and it's not true.

It's a different way to reach each unique individual.

- [Announcer] Morsching sees the increase in difficult behaviors we mentioned at the top of the program as examples of young people who need help managing their impulses and emotions.

- But I think it's really important to remember that their children and they're kids and we can think all of the things that we wanted that they are bad kids or that they're violent kids, all of that.

But they have an immature brain and they're kids and they're making whatever decisions that they can.

They've arrived at this date a 100% alive.

It might not be the tools we want them to use, but until they have a new tool, they're not gonna use it.

- [Announcer] Children act out for different reasons.

Tifanie Petro with the Children's Home Society says childhood adversity can impact young people's behavior.

- How we respond truly does matter because if we're talking about disruption of intergenerational cycles of adversity, if we're talking about creating change for the next generation, we have to think about how do we respond to this child in front of us right now to make sure that A, they get the help they need and B, that no other children are at risk of further experiencing these types of harm.

- [Announcer] But helping kids both before and after they break the law is complicated.

Attorney General Marty Jackley says there is no one size fits all approach.

- What we ought to do is give the financial resources that the state saved, put it back into the communities, into the diversion programs, spend less effort on gathering statistics and more effort on the streets, boots on the ground helping kids.

- [Announcer] And success looks a little different for everyone.

The Chase family hopes their son can adjust smoothly to life back at home when he's released from his residential treatment.

- We're hoping he's able to be home for a little bit before he then starts into the school year this coming fall.

- [Announcer] They also hope to keep him engaged in counseling as long as they can find it.

Successful diversion programs can mean a child never encounters the system again.

Kim Morsching with the Pennington County State's Attorney's Office says she may not learn what happens to kids who complete diversion until years later.

- Because if they never come back, there's no reason to follow.

We have no reason to know about them.

But it's when like life begins to happen when they're growing up that they're like, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that.

That meant a lot to me."

- [Announcer] The success stories that life goes on for them.

- [Kim] Yes, yes, that's success, right?

It's just the, they don't enter into the adult criminal justice system.

(gentle music)