From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Volunteers create library at Miami juvenile detention center

By Dina Weinstein
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

A formerly drab meeting room in the Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Center has a new look and a new purpose thanks to a group of volunteers from Leadership Miami, a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce program.

The professionals rolled up their sleeves and transformed the space into a 1,000-plus-volume library sporting calm blue walls, tan rugs and nature photographs.
"We felt that nobody is really paying attention to these kids, so we wanted to put an effort into a project that says they are a part of the community and a part of the solution," said volunteer Adriana Sol, a partner at the Coral Gables public relations agency Vine Communications. "There was no library before, and we wanted to give them a place where they could have books."
Each year, approximately 8,000 young Miamians do time. They're locked up for committing battery, petty theft, murder, sexual assault, domestic violence, carjacking or bringing a weapon to school. It's the largest facility of its kind in Florida and the third largest in the country.
While in the walled facility, the youth sleep in cinderblock-walled cells. With capacity for 226 people, the incarcerated boys wear brown jumpsuits, and the girls wear orange jumpers. Guards require the prisoners to stand in lines at all times while moving from place to place. An average stay is a month, though some youths stay longer while waiting for room in another facility or program.
Despite the rigidity, life also has a familiar rhythm to it. The center houses a school and many other services that address health and educational needs. Detention center staff are excited that the prisoners now have access to a library. The stakes are high. A 2003 U.S. Department of Education study showed a 52 percent illiteracy rate for Miami-Dade County. Neighboring counties fared a little better, with 22 percent in Broward and 14 percent in Palm Beach.
"These students don't know how to comprehend texts beyond the eighth-grade level," said Gina Graham Clark, literacy coach at the Juvenile Justice Center School. "But just because the kids read at a lower level, it doesn't mean the end of their prospects in life. When I give them low-level but high-interest texts, they can't get enough."
However, Graham Clark warned lack of educational achievement is a stumbling block to future work success and practical matters such as understanding a mortgage agreement.
Her passion and empathy for students who have shut themselves off to the educational system has turned many around.
"At the school we set our goals on something we can work toward," Graham Clark explained, adding that she is proud of the students who have completed their GEDs and others who are now focusing on academics. "We're here to offer our services and to offer some peace to these children while they're in jail so they can build up their vocabularies and comprehension and turn their lives around."
Sol and about a dozen other Imagine Miami volunteers asked friends and families for donations hoping that the library would offer many topics including classics, history, educational, motivational, inspirational, poems, substance abuse and travel for boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 19 with various reading levels.
"Some youth at the center cannot read; therefore, beginner level books are also welcome," Sol wrote in an e-mail to the parenting listserv Just Ask Boo. "No books or magazines with staples or hard-covered books will be accepted. Books or magazines in Spanish or Creole are encouraged."
Books and Books was a drop-off book donation point. South Miami Middle School students collected volumes. IKEA donated shelving.
A popular detention center program called "Read and Receive" that rewards reading and good behavior will tap into the library's resources.
"We want the students to read to learn and to read for enjoyment," Graham Clark said.
Anyone wishing to donate books to the Juvenile Detention Center Library or volunteer as a literacy volunteer should call Superintendent Vershawn Berry at 305-637-4500, ext. 101.