Too White To Comprehend : Judge Susan Craighead

Washington Initiative 1000, Affirmative Action and Diversity Commission Measure (2019)
Judge Susan J. Craighead
Mailing Address:
c/o King County Superior Court
516 3rd Ave, Room C-203
Seattle, WA 98104
Courtroom Number: E-835
Phone: 206-477-1435
Email: [email protected]
Bailiff: Chase Craig
Department: 18
Assignment: Unified Family Court
King County Zero Youth Detention Taking a Public Health approach

Learn more about the journey toward Zero Youth Detention
Rimon and his mother both invested in the first King County Juvenile Court felony case to be resolved through a peacemaking circle, a process inspired by Native American traditions.
All youth in King County deserve to grow into happy, healthy adults. Research shows that youth have a better chance at positive adulthood when they don’t interact with the juvenile legal system. Zero Youth Detention calls for partnering with youth, families, and communities and building on their strengths so that communities are safe, legal system involvement is limited or avoidable, and all youth have the opportunity to be happy, healthy, safe, and thriving.
The Road Map to
Zero Youth Detention
The Road Map to Zero Youth Detention is King County’s strategic plan to not only further reduce the use of secure detention for youth, but to launch this County on a journey to eliminate it.
Building on 20 years of reducing the secure detention population, this region begins the journey to Zero Youth Detention with momentum. Informed by youth and their families, communities, and employees whose work touches the lives of youth, the Road Map outlines practical solutions designed to improve community safety, help young people thrive, keep them from entering the juvenile legal system, divert them from further legal system involvement, and support strong, unified communities.
A Public Health approach to Zero Youth Detention
In November 2017, the King County Executive called for using a public health approach as part of King County’s commitment to review juvenile detention and advance the goal of zero youth detention. Through this approach, community and system partners come together to promote the positive development and well-being of all youth, expand the use of the best evidence and promising practices on adolescent development, and ensure that the collective response to youth in crisis restores them on a path towards well-being.
Public Health – Seattle & King County is leading through a trauma-informed lens. This means that the strategies and actions in the Road Map will respond to the impacts of trauma and adversity in the lives of youth involved in the juvenile legal system and those who have been harmed when crimes occur. Building protective factors, resilience, and making other supports available help to mitigate the impacts of trauma.
Visit the Zero Youth Detention Blog
Road map to Zero Youth Detention
(PDF, 296 pages with appendices, 6.5 Mb)
Road map without appendices
(PDF, 74 pages, 2.7 Mb)
Executive Summary

Restorative Justice
A key component of Zero Youth Detention is accountability for harmful behavior that happens swiftly and in a restorative way. The concept of restorative justice brings together those harmed by criminal behavior, those who cause the harm, and the larger involved community to discuss how they have been affected and what should be done to repair the harm. When done most effectively, restorative justice is a community-based approach to accountability, safety, and healing.
The Road Map has five overarching goals, outlined below. To learn more about these objectives and their strategies and action items, delve into our Diving into the Road Map blog series.
Zero Youth Detention Data Dashboard
Collecting and analyzing data has long been the focus of reforms in the juvenile legal system in King County.

ZYD Implementation Dashboard
The ZYD Implementation Dashboard tracks projects and actions to get us closer to Zero Youth Detention.

Objective 1: Lead
Lead with racial equity. By leading with racial justice in the work of Zero Youth Detention, all stakeholders involved with the juvenile legal and other youth-serving systems are being called to commit to addressing systemic institutional racism and bias and to align efforts through this deeply challenging work. Learn more on the blog.

Objective 2: Prevent
Prevent youth from entering the juvenile legal system by focusing upstream and on systems to have the greatest impact. This objective recognizes that strong partnerships between youth and families, schools and communities, and the County are needed to enhance positive youth development and position youth on a path toward success. Learn more on the blog.

Objective 3: Divert
Divert youth from further law enforcement, formal legal processes, and secure detention into community based options. This objective calls on legal system partners and community to work together to create an effective continuum of community-based approaches, accessed at different points in the juvenile legal process, that provide for community safety and for the developmental needs of youth. Learn more on the blog.

Objective 4: Support
Support youth and families to reduce recurrence of legal system involvement and increase healthy outcomes. The objective recognizes that young people who remain in their own community have better outcomes after contact with the juvenile legal system. When community-based resources are not a viable option and a young person must be placed in secure detention as a last resort, family engagement and reentry supports are essential. Learn more on the blog.

Objective 5: Align
Align and optimize connections between systems to increase effectiveness. When systems work together, the people they serve benefit. This objective recognizes that youth and families are often served by multiple systems and more can be done to coordinate between and among these systems. Learn more on the blog.
The new Children and Family Justice Center
Until the need for secure detention of youth in King County is eliminated, it is necessary to have a developmentally appropriate physical environment that better meets the needs of youth in detention than currently exists. The new Children and Family Justice Center will replace the outdated Youth Services Center. As the County continues to drive reductions in the use of secure detention for young people, the detention housing in the new facility will convert to transitional units and community use space.
The new facility will feature:
An environment focused on restorative spaces, supportive services and integration of volunteer community programs
Childcare facilities for those on Court business
100 fewer beds than the existing detention facility
Space for courtrooms
Meeting rooms
Resource center
More about the Children and Family Justice Center.
Further resources
Executive Order Report: A Public Health Approach in King County Juvenile Detention
King County Zero Youth Detention Blog
Juvenile justice data and reports
Executive Order directing Public Health to oversee juvenile detention reorganization
Best Starts for Kids
Veterans, Seniors, and Human Services Levy
Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Service Improvement Plan
Youth Action Plan
Link/share our site at www.kingcounty.gov/zero-youth-detention
Derrick Wheeler-Smith, Judge Judith Ramseyer, Kaeshon Adams, and Dominique Davis say they want King County to keep working toward zero youth detention.
Credit: KUOW Photo/Amy Radil
These advocates hope beds stay empty at new kid jail in King County Aug 30, 2019 at 3:13 pm
By
Amy Radil
One of King County’s most controversial building projects is nearing completion.
The Children and Family Justice Center in Seattle has been the focus of lawsuits and protests because it includes a juvenile detention center.
Judges and youth advocates say their focus will be on continuing to work for zero youth detention.
The new facility will be larger and more light-filled than the cramped building it replaces. In addition to courtrooms, it will offer more spaces for lawyers and service providers to connect with families.
But it’s the building’s 112 secure juvenile detention beds that became the sticking point for opponents, who say their inclusion is at odds with research on the lasting harms of incarceration for youth.
KUOW asked some stakeholders for their perspectives on the new building, and met with them at the existing Youth Services Center in the Central District.
King County Superior Court Judge Judith Ramseyer, the chief juvenile court judge, said the new building furthers the court’s movement from a punitive to a rehabilitative model over the last 20 years.
The average daily population in King County’s youth detention has declined in recent decades to about 50. That includes youth under juvenile court supervision; more recently youth under 18 charged as adults have been transferred there as well. That transfer caused a slight uptick in the average population from 2017 to 2018.
It’s still one of the lowest youth detention rates in the country. But Ramseyer said the new building needs enough beds so youth can be separated by age, gender and seriousness of their offense.
“One thing to keep in mind is that as a public building it is constructed for the next 50 years or more,” she said. “You can’t spend this much money and go to this much trouble and build something that’s based strictly in the present. There has to be some anticipation for population growth.”
She noted that not all youth there are incarcerated; some non-secure beds are used by kids referred by law enforcement while they address issues of family violence.
Dominique Davis is CEO and founder of the group Community Passageways, which seeks to keep youth out of the criminal justice system. He said regardless of the new building, he wants the focus to be on prevention, and keeping kids out of those beds.
“The ones that are in there, we want to get them out, and the ones that are out here, we want to keep them out,” Davis said.
“So we’re going to be in the courtrooms, we’re going to be in the detention centers, we’re going to be in the jails,” he said. “I’m going to keep building relationships with the judges, and we’re going to keep having conversations.”

King County’s Children and Family Justice Center cost $232m and opens in November.
Credit: Photo courtesy of King County.
Keeping kids out of those beds means working “upstream” in schools and other places where kids first encounter problems, said Derrick Wheeler-Smith. He directs the county’s new Zero Youth Detention project.
Wheeler-Smith said he’s been working with one King County school district that suspended more than 35 kindergartners last year.
“I have no idea what a kindergartner does to be suspended,” he said.
Wheeler-Smith declined to name that district, but said they’re looking at being present in local schools in various ways.
He said that King County has made striking progress in reducing juvenile detention, but that a current challenge is to understand why progress is unequal across racial lines. “Because while those numbers have declined, disproportionality actually has risen,” he said.
African-Americans make up an even greater share of detained youth, even as overall numbers are going down.
Kaeshon Adams, now 23, once faced felony charges in King County’s juvenile system.
He said what youth need most at those moments is to be connected to a community advocate: “Just a basic plan when they get out, as far as housing, job, family needs, and then somebody that can really help them while they’re battling their court case,” he said.
Adams was sitting alone at his court hearing when Davis brought community members to support him and tell the judge his story.
“That was the first time he had adults who cared to show up,” Davis said. “The excitement in his eyes just said it all.”
The charges were eventually reduced. Now Adams volunteers and provides outreach to other young people.

Chief juvenile judge Judith Ramseyer said service providers will have designated space in the Children and Family Justice Center.
Credit: KUOW/Amy Radil
Judge Ramseyer said the new courtrooms will provide more space for family members and supporters. The building also contains designated space for service providers.
“Finally there will be space where many of the service providers the court works with can actually have a presence in the courthouse,” she said.
Ramseyer said families need more support navigating court proceedings.
“We’d like to have volunteers, particularly people who have been through the system in one way or another,” she said.
Davis said other unmet needs include more support for the parents of at-risk youth, who often have their own struggles. “There’s not a lot of programs out there that deals with the parents and the issues that the parents are going through,” he said.
And they agreed that another big need for everyone working with hungry teenagers is … food.
Every step in the system from community dinners to probation officers who meet with youth could use donated snacks and meals. Davis said existing nonprofits spend thousands of dollars on food.
“Just feeding kids alone, we just need people to help us feed the young people, that would be awesome if we could do that,” he said.

The new family courthouse replaces the Youth Services Center next door.
Credit: Photo courtesy of King County.
The new Children and Family Justice Center is scheduled to open in November. Construction will continue at the site, as the old Youth Services Center is torn down and replaced with landscaping and a parking garage.

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