Years ago, Howard L. Beyer witnessed something that changed the way he viewed juvenile corrections. A 15 year-old boy was detained for stealing a bicycle and was eventually placed in solitary confinement, where he committed suicide. For Beyer, the message was clear: solitary confinement can irreversibly change a person.

“For the family that lost the little bike – sure, that's horrible. But for the family that lost the child - was it necessary to put this child into detention like that? I don't think so,” Beyer says. “That incident changed the way I looked at that type of punishment. Surely, some juveniles need to be put into those centers for public safety – but we need to be careful. I believe that kids who go into detention centers – even for a short amount of time – will have their lives changed forever.”

Beyer is well known throughout the state of New Jersey for his constant commitment to rehabilitating juvenile offenders – and not in the usual ways. Beyer's co-workers have called him a ‘tremendous leader' and a ‘passionate' juvenile justice professional. Beyer, who is also known for the innovative and modern programs he uses to help juveniles, was serving as the Executive Director of the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission.

In a recent ceremony, the Council of Juvenile Justice Correctional Administrators (CJCA) announced that Howard L. Beyer has been chosen to serve as President of the non-profit organization.

The Corrections Connection recently spoke with Beyer about his nomination, and the way he stays positive while dealing with juvenile offenders.

Q: What goals do you have when dealing with juveniles and how have you reached out to them?

Beyer: We have to make the environment that we're responsible for safe. It has to be safe for the staff and the kids - and it has to be done with respect and dignity. We realized how important that is so we mandated respect and dignity training. We have to be good role models for the children we are responsible for. When we approached the situation with that in mind, that's when things started to change.

I thought – what motivates kids to do the things they do? So I decided to get teachers and psychiatrists and psychologists and then we asked what the kids thought. We took them to a comfortable place and ask them what motivates them? And the kids said money. Because sneakers are expensive, jeans are expensive and a car is tons of money. The second most important thing for them was being acknowledged. They wanted to feel important and appreciated. We realized that both the staff and the juveniles wanted the same thing – to be appreciated. So we started the respect and dignity training.

Q: What types of programs are you using to help these juveniles?

Beyer: Well, we try to use programs that interest the kids. We try to teach our kids skills that they can use in life. We have a program that teaches juveniles to fix bikes and we've created a horticulture program. Another really popular program involves raising butterflies – for every 12 butterflies our kids raise, we earn $100. More than that, we've established a health care system for these kids. We have doctors and dentists for them. We don't call them ‘inmates' either – we call them our kids. We don't have a single inmate in this facility – we have kids.

Something else that has really helped is focusing on the female kids in our program. Our girls are our smallest population, but we realized that they have to become one of the highest priorities in our facility. You cannot treat girls like you treat boys – and once you realize that, you can make things run much more smoothly.

Q: What kind of mindset do you have when dealing with juveniles?

Beyer: We are dealing with juveniles – they are still children. They still have the chance to change their lives and make something of themselves. I wake up in the morning and say “I'm really excited to go to work” – my challenge is to come into work and to try and change the lives of young boys and girls who might not be angels, but many are victims of abuse and come from difficult home environments and here is our chance – while they are still kids – to change that life around. And we're doing it – we aren't doing it with every single kid, but we do see successes and that is a wonderful feeling Coming out of the adult system, where we were responsible for thousands of adult men and women, it really prepared me for this task, for helping juveniles. It's ultimately coming from that area that has helped.

We really just want to help the children grow up into adults and responsible citizens – not re-offenders. It's not that the DOC is a bad thing or that it's run by bad people – it's a very good and responsible program. It just boggles my mind at times that I have dealt with men who are serving time from now until the rest of their lives – men who will live and die in a prison and would never see freedom again – it was just a very hard thing for me to fathom. As a prison warden, they are ultimately public safety and preventing escape is the main responsibility, but I'm very concerned with preventing the reoccurrence of crime.