News Photo by Julie Riddle Behind reinforced windows, officers at the Sault Tribe Youth Facility in St. Ignace patrol a commons area where juvenile offenders from northern Michigan, detained at the facility, do homework and eat their meals.

ST. IGNACE — The steel door opened with a click. At a table, a figure in an inmate-orange shirt sat playing cards.

At his elbow rested a small stack of notebooks and a 24-count box of crayons.

The strawberry-blonde boy with mild brown eyes, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, glanced curiously up at an unexpected visitor, and then went back to his game of Uno.

“Imagine if you were 15 years old, locked in a building,” said Dave Menard, director of the Sault Tribe Youth Facility in St. Ignace, which houses juvenile offenders from across northern Michigan. “You’ve got to remember they’re kids. They’re children.”

Some of the dozen or so teenagers in the quiet commons area and attached classrooms glanced up from the computers, where they were engrossed in online schoolwork or passing the time with a game of chess. Others kept their heads down, engrossed in books from the miniscule library at the far end of the room.

When young people, too young to be considered adults in the criminal justice system, are convicted of a crime in Rogers City, Alpena, and many other northern Michigan communities, their sentences may include a stay of a few days, weeks, or months at the residential facility owned and operated by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

Judge Erik Stone, probate and family court judge for Presque Isle County’s 53rd Circuit Court family division, often uses the St. Ignace detention center to house first-time and low-level juveniles. The staff are considerate and respectful of a county’s intentions, Stone said, and the facility nearly always has room to house a child at the last minute, opening their doors to the young person who needs to be removed immediately, for the safety of the community or that of the child.

“Camp Cupcake,” some Rogers City law enforcement officers call the detention center. Though not entirely sure what transpires behind its battleship-gray exterior, the officers have heard it’s soft.

Easy.

Not much in the way of a punishment.

The phrase, proffered by a visitor, settled about Menard’s shoulders as he sat in silence, making him shake his head.

“Would you like a tour?” he asked.

REGIMENTED DAYS

The commons area, with its green-and-white checked floor and window looking out on the chain-link-fenced outdoor exercise area, funnels into the building’s one, pale-white cement brick hallway. At the far end, four dayrooms, with windows open to a central desk used by detention officers, hold teal chairs of molded plastic, simplistic sinks, and beds with inexpertly but carefully straightened thin blue blankets.

The rooms, with their locking doors, serve as home to the young people kept within the detention center’s walls.

From the moment residents wake up, their days are regimented. Routines are mandatory, from timed showers to the expectation of a tidily made bed.

School-day hours are spent in studies. The facility utilizes educational computer software compatible with many schools in northern Michigan, and also brings in teachers from the local high school to help the young residents work toward graduation.

Residents often come to the center miserably behind educationally, Menard said. Detention may be the first time they have been pushed to focus on their studies, or even to attend school.

The middle afternoon hours are spent in group and occasional individual counseling sessions. After dinner, residents retire behind the locked steel doors of their dayrooms, unless a parent has come to visit.

That doesn’t happen often, Menard said.

NOT PUNISHMENT

At an age when a sleepover at a friend’s house may be the longest a young person has spent away from home, youths aged 11 to 17 spend anywhere from a single night to, in rare cases, months or even a year at the detention center, often hours and hours away from home.

The Sault Tribe detention center is the only facility in the northern half of Michigan. Youths from hours to the west or south are both emotionally and physically distant from the comforts — if any comforts are there for the having — of home.

Some stay briefly, for their safety or that of the community as a court case proceeds. Others are there as a wakeup call after a parole violation, or when beds are not available at a youth residential treatment facility, where repeat offenders and young people needing specialized treatment are sent for more intensive care.

All of the youths at the Sault Tribe Youth Facility know why they’re there, Menard said.

The locked doors are a constant reminder that something they did led to the loss of something they wish they could have back.

The detention center is not punishment, Menard said. It’s a way to help the young people in his charge turn their lives around and become better adults.

Still, it’s not a trip to summer camp.

There are rules and schoolwork. Cell phones are prohibited, as are social media and internet access.

If a child wants to play a board game, they have to ask permission. If they want to change the channel on the television, they have to ask someone to do it for them. If they’re thirsty, they can’t get their own glass of water.

There are no couches, no bedrooms to escape to, no headphones playing music to soothe inner demons, or friends to roflol at their jk, silly-face-emoji.

All the doors lock.

“If that’s cupcake…,” Menard said, his voice trailing off.

‘YOU’LL SEE CHANGES’

The corrections officers, all of whom are certified both federally and with the state because of the center’s tribal affiliation, work to instill manners, demanding “yes, sir” and “thank you” and “you’re welcome” from the residents.

“It seems like such a little thing,” Menard said, “but we’re talking about kids who have never had to do that. With those little things, you’ll see changes. And we do.”

A simplistic pencil drawing of a bear is thumbtacked to a bulletin board in Menard’s office. Once his residents leave, he doesn’t want to see them again — not wearing orange, at any rate.

Sometimes, though, the children reach out, sometimes years down the road, to thank him and the detention officers, their jailors and caretakers.

Some of the kids have probably been hollered at all their lives, Menard said. They come in the center’s booking door scared or rebellious or crying, or “hot potatoes,” with anger to burn.

Whoever they are, the staff treats them with respect, and expects the same in return.

The food is good at the detention center.

Kids know Thursday is hamburger day, a part of the routine that both chafes and helps them feel secure. Home-cooked meals made from fresh ingredients doesn’t sound like a punishment for a delinquent. But the simple act of providing a reliable, tasty meal can make a powerful impact, Menard said.

“They don’t know what normal is,” Menard said. “It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s unbelievable.”

It’s not uncommon, Menard said, for a child to say they don’t mind being there, with the plastic chairs and one hallway and locked doors.

“Because I know that, every morning, when the lights come on and I wake up, I know it’s going to be you in a black uniform,” Menard said, speaking for many of the hundreds of children who have lived within his walls.

The first face they see isn’t going to be a drunken father trying to do something disgusting, a high mother with an angry hand.

For a time, for those days behind doors that lock, the children know that, every morning they’ll find someone they can trust, a routine that won’t change, a hot meal and an education that matters.

“They’re not placed here and forgotten,” Menard said.

And then, they’re sent on their way, back into the uncertain and unstructured world, still children.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.