Jane Mylrea

Though neither a long-time Dubuque resident nor old, Mylrea, then a 32-year-old lawyer, reflected the new target audience of a magazine that once proudly explained that it was not edited for the "old lady in Dubuque."

Within a few years, Mylrea moved from a position of celebrity to that of authority. In 1990, she was appointed associate juvenile court judge for Iowa's First Judicial District. Though her position has not changed, she acknowledges that some of her perspectives on it have. However, what has not changed is her concern for the young people whose cases she hears.

Following are highlights of her Oct. 17 interview with the TH:

TH:In a TH guest column eight years ago, you said a lot of the folks that you deal with in the juvenile court system are "disenfranchised, dysfunctional and desperate." Is that still the case?
Mylrea:Yes, unfortunately. You hear the term "dysfunctional" coined so much now, but truly I see people on the edge and people that are going through hard times or they wouldn't be seeing me. I think there's a myth that juvenile court is all delinquents and kids who are getting in trouble with the law. That's a part of it, but far and away the vast majority of my cases are not just kids in trouble, but families in trouble.

Jane Currie Mylrea

Age: 47. Family: Wife of Dr. James Mylrea and mother of Nathan, 20, a student at Colby College, Waterville, Maine; and Alison , 21, a student at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn. Education: Juris doctorate, University of Minnesota, 1979; Bachelor of Arts, St. Olaf College, 1976. Valley High School, West Des Moines, Iowa, 1973. Employment: Associate juvenile court judge and hospital referee, Iowa First Judicial District, 1990-present; general practice attorney, Reynolds & Kenline, Dubuque, 1985-89; assistant county attorney, Hennepin County, Minn., 1981-84; judicial law clerk, Hennepin County, 1980-81; research attorney, Research Attorneys, Inc., Minneapolis, 1980-81; associate counsel, St. Paul (Minn.) Title Insurance, 1979-80; summer law clerk, Larking & Hoffman, Minneapolis, 1978; instructor, University of Minnesota Law School, 1977-79. Professional associations: Iowa Judges Association, National Association of Women Judges, Iowa Bar Association, National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Honors: Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude graduate, St. Olaf College; salutatorian, Valley High School. Community activities: Formerly associated with Hillcrest Family Services, League of Women Voters, Women in Management, Dubuque Symphony Orchestra, Dubuque Area Arts Council, Westminster Session, Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors and Grand Opera House. Hobbies: Reading and travel.

Ninety percent of the families that I see are indigent and qualify for a court-appointed attorney. So this tells us that we're dealing with people that don't have a lot of resources, financially and otherwise, and are on the edge. Disfranchised. By that I mean people not typically actively involved in their community - either the parents and then the next generation. Most of the delinquents that I do see, unfortunately, are not kids active in school. They tend to do poorly in school and they are not active in sports or music. When I first started with this job about 12 years ago, with my rose-colored glasses on, as a condition of probation I requested that they all pick one thing - their choice, I wasn't going to force anything on them - that they can participate in and become involved in a positive peer group. It failed miserably. My children were involved in AYSO soccer. Early on I thought, "Well, we'll get all the young kids that I see involved in AYSO soccer." The problem was not the $50 up-front fee. It was getting them to practice. It was getting them motivated and all the other things that come along with supporting your kids in that kind of activity.

TH:You're describing a typical - if there is a "typical" - client's family. What are some of the other characteristics?
Mylrea:Again, we are discussing stereotypes. We are speaking now in generalities.
In addition to low economic status, I see a lot of people on welfare and Social Security disability. I see people, many of whom - if we're talking now about the parents - never graduated from high school. In Child In Need of Assistance cases - and that's about 75 percent of my caseload - it would not be unusual for there to be five children in a family, three different fathers, all of whom - or maybe two out of three - in jail or prison. I paint that picture because, again, it's another slice of life. I think it also tends to portray the enormity of what we're dealing with. We're not dealing with just a substance abuse problem, which I also see a lot of. I see a lot of mental illness. People whose mental illness prevents them from being an active participant. Many of them are on disability. If they're unable to work, of course, we know they're going to have difficulty raising kids, which is the toughest job any of us have. I'm not seeing, thank goodness, as much sexual abuse as I was seeing maybe 10 years ago. I'm not sure why. But that would be another item: People, parents, who have lived in situations where they were abused and then again the cycle continues. It usually is not a biological parent. Again, talking in stereotypes, 90 percent of the time, the perpetrator is male and usually it's mother's boyfriend or a stepfather or older sibling. I see people who have no car and, either intentionally or otherwise, don't even have a telephone. Dysfunctional, I think, speaks for itself when I describe some of the cases and the issues I'm dealing with. Dysfunctional. Disenfranchised.

TH:Desperate.
Mylrea:It's desperate, isn't it?

TH:You just mentioned that about three-fourths of your caseload are Child In Need of Assistance cases. Talk a bit about what you call the CHINA process.
Mylrea:There are a lot of trials and hearings involved in CHINA cases. They're more hotly contested cases. When children need to be removed from their parents, the parents are losing their parental rights on a temporary basis because of imminent risk to the child. We are talking about child abuse, neglect, inability to properly care for a child. They're very sensitive cases. When you get a case that the child is in need of assistance because they've been abused and neglected, then we have mandatory hearings. For example, a removal hearing within 10 days. A legal finding called an adjudicatory hearing within 60. Then, again, there's a lot of procedure involved because, of course, we have to be very cognizant of due process and parental rights. At those hearings, a child is appointed a guardian ad litem. Some of them will be appointed a CASA - Court Appointed Special Advocate - for those abused and neglected children. The parents are also authorized to have court-appointed attorneys. Again, we have a case where there might be three different dads; you're going to have three separate attorneys. Another attorney for the mother. So you can imagine there are pretty crowded courtrooms and a lot of different people having a lot of different interests and very strong emotions because we're dealing with their children. The protocol on a CHINA case is that after we remove the child, we are required by the law to provide what are called reasonable-effort services to that family to try to address the issues that brought the removal; for example, methamphetamine abuse by a caretaker parent. We will then order substance abuse treatment, random UAs, family counseling.

TH:What are UAs?
Mylrea:Urinalysis. We use UAs a lot with marijuana because it stays in the system for up to 30 days, and we catch it a lot. Of course, methamphetamine is whole 'nother ball of wax than marijuana. The other kind of CHINA cases - a child has been intentionally burned with cigarette butts, for example. Shaken by a stepparent. Sexual abuse of children. Horrendous things, but fairly easy from the standpoint of protecting the child. Of course, that child will remain in foster care until that matter has been addressed and the safety can be ensured to return the child. The gray cases are the other side of the coin of the Child In Need of Assistance legal definition, which is really a grab bag. It can be an emotionally disturbed child that suffers from mental health problems. The other kind of case, which is truly those gray/fringe cases, are the out-of-control adolescent and teenager. We're talking about kids who are frequently truant. They are kids who are involved in a lot of promiscuous behavior, getting involved in petty crime, running away from home. We have over 500 runaways a year - and that's just recorded runaways - in Dubuque County. It can be discouraging because, sometimes, after lots of resources and efforts, we're not successful. The two main indicia to me of failure in my job, after all these efforts of trying to help kids and families, is when I read "Police Beat" in the Telegraph Herald and I see that some of my young people are getting arrested as adults, or that one of our young girls at a very young age is pregnant.

TH:Either officially or unofficially, is there a way to track your constituency, or is it just pretty much at random when you happen to see it in the paper? You had a juvenile that you had seen, now they're 23, 25 years old. Do you see statistics or any sort of report?
Mylrea:That is an excellent question and one that I've been concerned about since I started the job 12 years ago. We're putting out a fire, we're dealing with a crisis, but over time, has there been a significant improvement and/or change? I have long been saying we've got to do some studies. The response I get - and I certainly understand the difficulty in this - is that they would have difficulty locating these folks again because they tend to be on the fringes. Then, how do you determine success? I have changed my definition of success. I used to want all the young people that I saw to have every opportunity that my children had, for education, for decent jobs, that type of thing. Now, I kind of want to keep them out of jail and prison. We want to keep them from getting pregnant before they're 18, and we just want some basic human resources for them. I did have a program called Success Stories two or three years ago because I was concerned about this very issue. So often, we're making a dent, but we're not making a life-changing impact, or so my perception has been. I don't have kids knocking down my door years later saying, "Wow, you just did me such a favor." Wouldn't that be nice? It has rarely ever occurred.

TH:What did you find with Success Stories?
Mylrea:We had a hard time getting caseworkers to take the time and initiative to find those success stories because of the time crunch. Then once we got the word out ... we had difficulty finding people willing to come forward. But we found seven, and we had a wonderful program at the Grand. It was a fabulous evening, but it was kind of a year of hard work and learning things the hard way. I invited all the kids currently in the juvenile court system, their families, kids in foster care, and we had probably at least 300. It was wonderful for them to hear these stories. But they weren't success stories of, you know, "I was involved in petty crime and I got into the system and then I went on to medical school." I didn't hear that. But what I did find were kids who had gone through drug treatment, for example, and were heavily involved in drugs that were willing to come forward and share their story. And had reached rock bottom but after the treatment had gone on to jobs in construction, became married, good things.

TH:It was quite a project to even come up with seven.
Mylrea:It was. One other one I want to mention was outstanding. She was pregnant at 15 with twins. She was in foster care, had had a difficult past. She came forward and she has five or six kids herself, is married, has had a lot of hurdles in her life but now takes in daycare for CHINA kids. Again, a wonderful story. So I have to keep in mind those stories and highlights when I read all the kids or families who aren't doing well.

TH:Are foster care services sufficient for the volume of cases that you see?
Mylrea:No. No. Foster parents for the most part, in my book, are the unsung heroes of this system. Can you imagine getting a call at 2 in the morning from Finley Hospital: "We've got a baby who's been abused. Will you take them into your home?" And they do. I think sometimes we read the horror stories and the problems of foster care. I can't imagine anyone going into foster care for the money, for example. It's certainly not that remunerative. It's tough work dealing with these oftentimes difficult cases and difficult kids. We have greater success finding foster homes for young children. We have many teenagers and adolescents sitting in shelters and detention facilities because there are no foster homes. Foster homes are hesitant to take the older kids. We have hundreds of kids in Iowa waiting for adoption, and it just breaks your heart.

TH:All this takes money. The court system has long complained that there isn't enough funding. What has the budget crisis facing Iowa done, particularly in the juvenile court system?
Mylrea:It has hit us hard. We have, in Dubuque County, lost hundreds of thousands and maybe into the millions. It is expensive work. It is over $100 a day to have a child in a group home. It's about $140 a day to put a child in detention. This is an expensive business. Our court-appointed attorneys are poorly reimbursed, and we are fortunate to have as many good souls doing this work because it is tough work and they are reimbursed at $50 an hour, which is less than half they would make if they were billing out at a normal rate. I want to support the need always for more resources and funding. But at the same time, certainly, we have to be watching the treasury. We have to make sure that what we're doing is helping and making a difference. And if we can't, we need to get out. We're always pinching resources. Most dramatically, a month or so ago, we were told now there would be a waiting list for group care. We've been told that you cannot place a child in group care without an incredible process. I can order a child into group care or residential treatment or the mental health institute, but an insurer or Title XIX can deny payment, so my order is relatively worthless. Now we're told that, "OK, a child needs group care, but they're going to go on a waiting list." And that means that kids are going to be waiting in shelters and detention facilities. So we're robbing Peter to pay Paul. We're just delaying the inevitable. These are critical situations.

TH:You mentioned earlier that you feel that you've seen some impact because of welfare reform initiatives. What are you seeing that you attribute to welfare reform?
Mylrea:I have to kind of start with the caveat that in these child abuse/neglect cases, I see the worst of the worst. Many of the people that I see have been unable to get off the welfare cycle. I read about the success of W2 in Wisconsin, and we've had many successes in Iowa because we've had the insight to realize you can't just tell a person to get a job without giving them health care and child care. A lot of the people that I see are not able to make it off because they just don't have the skills to keep a job, get a job. So they remain in that quagmire and oftentimes, in order to lessen the stress at home, we're paying - the taxpayers are paying - for child care because the parent can't work but the parent can't parent the child, either. I firmly believe in welfare reform. I have not seen people - children - abused and neglected because of welfare reform. I see people caught in a cycle of poverty. We've go to do something to help them, but we've got to look out for the next generation, too. I'm more in favor of group homes for teen moms. Places like the Maria House. Places where we can provide them with a structured, supportive living arrangement to get them to the next step. I really applaud our community and the sisters who put together a program like Maria House. We need more community programs like that - less emphasis on government taking care of all these problems, because we don't have the resources or the ability to do it. So we have the family empowerment program for women who need a place to live. Our housing lists, waiting for low-income housing, are enormous. On the other hand, I see hardworking people working at minimum wage, with no health insurance. Their kids usually will have Hawk-I; there are resources for the kids. For example, you get a single mom and she's got three kids and she's working second shift at a nursing home. How's she going to raise those teenagers? I have the utmost compassion for her because she is trying to better herself and trying to work herself out of this quagmire. I have less compassion for giving government handouts. Many of our people, if you add up their welfare, their health insurance, their housing, are getting thousands of dollars every month. I just see a lot of abuses of that. It bothers me and I have to be careful of what is my job and what is not my job.

TH:You also mentioned that you see the impact of drugs, and specifically meth. Is that occurring among the juveniles that you see? Is it more in the parental area? Or is it both?
Mylrea:Both, but more in the parental area. One of the other hats that I wear - and takes me out to the hospital psych ward two or three times a week - is I'm a hospital referee. I do all of the mental health and substance abuse commitments for adults and children for our county. We're seeing a lot of meth up at the hospital because the abuse is dangerous to themselves or others. I'm seeing it more in CHINA cases. We certainly have seen some filter down to the high schools, but my main concern or what I've seem mostly in juvenile court is the following scenario: Police do a drug bust, one or both caretaker parents is using meth or cooking meth in their home or trailer, which makes it a truly explosive situation. The stuff is highly flammable. And there are there are two or three little kids in that situation. I have automatically removed children from those dangerous situations. What do we do with these cases? What we're doing is filling up foster homes. We then tell the parents, "You've got to get treatment." It's such a rapid addiction. Once you've used, it's going to be hard not to. So they can voice through our caseworkers, "Oh, I'm going to stop. My kids mean everything to me. I'll do everything I can not to use so I can get my kids back." But their ability to stop ... It's a cycle of incredible addiction like we haven't seen since cocaine. My main concern is, "What do I do with the children of meth users?" I have terminated parental rights because they can't stay off the stuff - and this is after in-patient and out-patient treatments. We're just going to have more and more kids in the system as a result of methamphetamine. The drug task force says Dubuque is a hotbed of methamphetamine use and manufacture. Iowa is known to be in one of the top three states for methamphetamine use. Our community needs to be aware of it and the impact it has again on that's where those resources, those limited dollars are going to go. It's scary stuff.

TH:You've said that in your job, you see the worst of the worst. Do you find that you bring your work home with you?
Mylrea:No. Particularly when my children are still at home, I leave it here. I'll be the first to admit that I am not a workaholic. I'm not a detail person. I try to see the big picture. I try to ground what I do on common sense. I'm not one for the legal technicalities. I, of course, have to abide by the law written by our Legislature, like it or not, and try to follow due process and that, but I leave it here. I never take a file home. I leave at 4:30 every day. Then when my children were home, I oftentimes said I went to my "second job." I saw another side of life. I saw kids involved. I got to remember that there are kids out there that are doing well. Now that my kids are in college, I'm not seeing that so much and you get kind of run down with this.

TH:Looking over your resume and articles, I noticed you used to be a voracious reader. Are you still reading a lot?
Mylrea:Yes, it's an addiction of sorts. I always have a magazine or book with me. I love to read. I should have been an English professor. During the 1970s, when professors were driving taxi cabs and jobs were not readily available, I remember having a conversation with my dad, who said, "Well, you like to read and write, why don't you go to law school?" It was that kind of a decision.

TH:I bet your parents encouraged your reading habit.
Mylrea:Yeah, I'm a voracious reader. I love it. I read everything from the New Yorker to newspapers. I'm kind of a mediaholic. But I read literature, too. My favorite is English and American literature of the last 200 years. I was in two book clubs, now I've pared it down to one book club.

TH:Someone told me that you have a book discussion group with some people involved in the system?
Mylrea:Yeah.

TH:Tell me about that.
Mylrea:I came up with the idea - after rereading "To Kill A Mockingbird" - to build a club. I'd read about it; Chicago had done the same thing. It wasn't all kids that were in trouble with the law; there were some kids in foster care, some kids at Hillcrest and that kind of stuff. They didn't do it because they necessarily wanted to; they did it because the judge ordered it. They were required to read it and meet with their caseworker and discuss a little bit about what they were reading. Then in July we went up to the big courtroom where we have wonderful high-tech TVs, and we watched the movie - which, again, is one of my all-time favorite movies, with Gregory Peck. What a classic. For them, I think it was a little slow moving.

TH:It dealt with the law, too.
Mylrea:It dealt with the law. It dealt with a lot of issues that I felt many of them either had to deal with or could connect with. The legal system, like it or not. I wanted them to be very open about me, their attorneys, the system, what we could do better. It was good. We had over 20 kids. Again, they were escorted there, but they did a great job. I was worried about it because sometimes I will kick off the project, whether it's Success Stories or this, I'll get these harebrained ideas and the attorneys and caseworkers are like, "Oh, my goodness," because it's extra work. TH:Is that something you are going to continue?
Mylrea:After I do a project like this, I say, "I will never do that again." But I probably will. I'm looking to motivate kids, somewhat out of self-interest. I love to read; I want my kids to love to read.

TH:You mentioned the New Yorker. Do you still hear about your status...
Mylrea:... My foray into celebrity? Yeah, I try to keep a low profile on that because it was kind of a flash in the pan. It was actually kind of a spoof at the time. I'd only lived in Dubuque for two years when I was the new "Little Old Lady from Dubuque." They were looking to change their image. It was fun. I was able to be part of their ad campaign.

TH:You have referred to the struggle between professional and family responsibilities. Is the Iowa court system a family-friendly employer? As a parent, do you feel that you have the flexibility you would like in this type of role?
Mylrea:It could be better. It is like any large entity. It is the State of Iowa. I make it as flexible as I can and I will continue to push for that. I think, for example, I'd love to see a four-day work week. If we're having budget cuts, if people want to take some time, that should be offered to them. This whole idea of family leave is pretty much non-existent. People don't do it because they're afraid that they're going to be mommy-tracked or never make a step up. In a job like this, burnout is high. I'm better after taking a week or so of vacation. I love to travel. I'm fortunate, I realize, but I want more time. I don't get it. I'm afraid sometimes if I asked - I'm probably killing myself politically here - that I will never, if I wanted to pursue another judicial post, that I wouldn't get it. I think we have a lot more progress to be made. I think if you treat people like human beings and balance their lives, they're going to be better at the job.

TH:As we wrap up, what point would you like to leave the community with as it relates to juveniles in this community?
Mylrea:Regarding crime: We're a relatively safe community. We've had only one murder in my 12 years on the bench committed by a juvenile. One murder. That's a good statistic. The actual criminal activity has remained relatively constant. About 10 to 15 percent of our kids will be charged with a crime. Most of that is possession of alcohol and marijuana. I never see those kids. I see maybe the worst 30 percent of the kids that filter through the juvenile court system. So in that regard, I think our community needs to know that we are fortunate. We have a wonderful police force. We have a good, committed juvenile court officers and people working the streets. But, on Child In Need of Assistance cases, we need community support and any action and support that we can see, the more involved we can be in the lives of these somewhat disenfranchised kids, the better. I never see a priest or minister here in my courtroom. I can count them on my hand in a year.

TH:There to support a family.
Mylrea:Support. Our community needs to look at these issues as well. Why do we have all these other school options for these disruptive kids? We see a lot of assaults in the schools, typically during a disciplinary procedure. I read just this morning that Mr. Mitchell up at Senior was cut by a student. I support zero tolerance for that type of behavior. We need to have some open discussion by our community on how we're going to respond. Are we going to respond by just removing them into another group with another group of delinquent kids? That's what we're doing now. At incredible expense. Are we using our resources wisely? Sometimes I think we lose sight of it because it's easy to just throw more money at it. Is that truly the answer? We need to provide an alternative educational experience for a lot of my kids. We're still set up that every kid is going to graduate from Dubuque schools and go on to college. That's not the case. We have no legitimate work or vocational alternative. We have mandatory school attendance laws, but a lot of these kids are, quite frankly, wasting the resources of our community schools, which is one of the reasons our budgets are so out of whack. Again, what is the outcome? I'd like to see businesses come forward and be willing to hire some of these kids and give them apprenticeships. These are tough kids, but they tend to be the kids that are going to move on in to no jobs, criminal activity, no skills, because our school system isn't set up for that. Maybe they shouldn't be, but who's going to fill that gap? More foster parents. Trying to address this methamphetamine problem. Work in the juvenile court system is usually complicated. After 12 years, there are no easy answers. These are complicated, multi-dimensional issues. To break the cycle of ignorance and poverty, which is what most of it is about. I was in "The Christmas Carol" a few years ago at The Grand. The part at the very end, when Scrooge is at the graveyard and out comes "Poverty" and "Ignorance," these two little urchins. And nothing's really changed. That's what it's about: Poverty and Ignorance. I think we have to keep nicking away at it.
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