Citing high vacancy rates due to increasingly robust “alternative to incarceration” efforts, Ramsey County officials are permanently shutting down their Boys Totem Town juvenile correctional facility this summer.

“Boys Totem Town has meant a lot to a lot of people. In that sense it hurts a little bit that we’re closing it down, but it’s time,” said Chris Crutchfield, deputy director of Ramsey County corrections.

Currently, the multi-building complex, which sits within 8 -acres of woods on St. Paul’s East Side, houses only six juveniles — far below its 36-bed capacity. Still, the facility costs $5.5 million annually to run on a 24-hour schedule.

Most juvenile offenders placed by courts at the facility stay for six months — and the last of them is expected to leave in July.

Occupancy at the juvenile facility has decreased over the years as Ramsey County’s judicial system has shied away from out-of-home placements for juvenile offenders. In 2015, Ramsey County had 125 juveniles in out-of-home placements; this year that has dropped to 32.

County corrections officials say they expect existing programs — including a juvenile correctional facility in Red Wing — to be able to accommodate all out-of-home correctional placements from this point forward.

“I think there’s a lot to be said for the success we’ve seen for the community-based alternatives. I think we’re doing great work for our community partners as well. It shows a lot of promise for the future of our youth and families,” said John Klavins, county director of community corrections. Of youths housed at Red Wing, he added: “We don’t anticipate escalating that number.”

“These reform efforts have happened without any spike or increase of juvenile crime in Ramsey County. So all this happens as crime continues to drop,” Crutchfield said.

Exact juvenile crime statistics were not immediately available Tuesday afternoon; overall serious crime rates have trended down in Ramsey County for roughly two decades.

Laura LeBlanc, of the St. Paul-based non-profit InEquality, — a watchdog group comprised of people with local experience in the criminal justice system — said of the decision, “We enthusiastically support the idea that we’re closing facilities. We’ve never gotten good outcomes from them.”

LeBlanc cited corrections statistics stating that 75 percent of those housed in a juvenile facility go on to be housed in an adult correctional facility later in life.

Along those lines, LeBlanc said she worries about the possibility of an increased number of juveniles being housed at Red Wing, a state correctional facility she noted was “a very prison-like setting. Chained fence, barbed wire.

“We’re going to be watch-dogging that,” she added.

Klavins said the county doesn’t anticipate any pink slips for the facility’s 42 full-time staff members.

“We are working currently toward reincorporating all of those staff into the department to various positions, both in the juvenile division and adult division,” Klavins said.

When it comes to other cost savings, both Crutchfield and Klavins said the county has yet to work up estimates.

County spokesman John Siqveland said the county will begin reaching out to neighbors to get input on how to repurpose the site — including whether to tear down the old building complex, built in 1913.

“No decisions have been made. We know neighbors are very interested about the future of the site,” Siqveland said.

The Ramsey County board will hold an informational workshop on the site following its regular board meeting next Tuesday.

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St. Cloud bicyclist killed by hit-and-run driver, State Patrol says County officials say the building has had no significant rehabilitation for decades and consider its dormitory model — with a dozen juveniles sleeping in a room, rather than single-room models that dominate most modern facilities — outdated.

In December 2016, Ramsey and Hennepin county leaders scrapped plans to build a joint center for delinquent youth, following public outcry that the proposal wasn’t in the best interest of teens.

Commissioners at the time called the facility inadequate and outdated, but also said they didn’t know what would come next after the county merger failed.