Westmoreland juvenile detention center eyes expansion in 2025

Westmoreland County’s juvenile detention center could double its capacity this spring, officials said Monday.

Eight juveniles were housed at the Hempfield facility, filling every available bed. It reopened in March after a series of issues included staffing shortages and critical state inspections that prompted county officials to temporarily shut down operations in June 2023. The state inspection reports were critical of understaffing and training failures that led to a near riot last year at the facility.

The most recent inspection conducted in November found no deficiencies or citations in facility operations, according to documents posted on the state’s Department of Public Welfare website.

The clean report comes months after what officials described as a “difficult August” that involved multiple altercations among residents in which one staff member was injured. The problems led to the resignation of three other employees.

Juvenile detention center Director Rich Gordon said the facility is once again fully staffed. Behavior among residents has improved, he added.

“Our staff has grown and worked together, and the nature of the children we’ve had has had an impact on the facility,” Gordon said.

The facility, which is housed in the Regional Youth Services Center along with an unsecured residential shelter program for troubled youth, is licensed to hold up to 16 juvenile offenders. Officials have limited its capacity to eight as the program renewed operations.

Upgrades underway

Work is continuing on a nearly $1 million project to replace doors and locking devices throughout the 45-year-old facility. Gordon said the project could be completed by March. Officials initially expected the work to be finished by the end of the year, but manufacturing delays pushed back delivery of new locking devices by several months.

“Once the door project is completed we will have the ability to increase our capacity to 16 (juveniles),” Gordon said.

For county officials, an expanded juvenile detention center could be a revenue generator. The county currently houses juvenile offenders from Westmoreland only, but plans are being formulated to rent bed space to other counties in 2025.

Allegheny and Erie counties are the only other government-owned secure juvenile detention facilities to operate in Western Pennsylvania.

Westmoreland County previously charged other counties $199 a day to house juvenile offenders, but contracts have since expired and those rates have become outdated. Westmoreland paid as much as much as $800 a day to house juvenile offenders in other county institutions throughout Pennsylvania and Ohio while the local detention center was shuttered.

“We are working on agreements with other counties,” Commissioner Sean Kertes said.