Vincent Schiraldi seems like a great guy, and that's one reason he makes me so nervous. I really want the new director of Youth Rehabilitation Services in DC to succeed at the supremely difficult job of turning around the city's juvenile justice system -- a system described by Schiraldi himself as "typically miserable".

Yet I've spent enough time watching highly regarded reformers tilting at municipal bureaucracies to fear that the whole enterprise is doomed, and that Schiraldi's strengths -- which include a quick mind, a ready tongue, acerbic humor and impatience -- will quickly turn into weaknesses. Anyone so quotable and so ready to point out the shortcomings of the organization he or she leads is eventually going to have trouble getting the troops fired up for battle.

Schiraldi spoke recently at a panel discussion hosted by the Chapin Hall Center for Children and the Urban Institute, earnestly titled "Can Positive Youth Development Improve Juvenile Justice?" Noting that he is the 23rd person in 20 years to head Washington DC's DYRS, Schiraldi seemed to harbor a certain healthy cynicism about his own chances for success -- which gave me a small flicker of hope that he does know what he's up against.

His new slogan for the department: "Treat the young people like they're your own, but never forget they are someone elses." He explained that it means giving youngsters in juvenile detention opportunities for education, artistic expression, and more; creating as much of a home as possible within the confines of a youth detention facility, increasing opportunities for supported work, and bringing in parents and guardians as partners.

Juvenile justice traditionalists, said Schiraldi, see much of the above as "fluff" -- and his department employees, he added, tend to treat parents with little respect and less understanding. He's pushing to allow kids detained at Oak Hill, the District's notorious detention facility for juveniles, to tape pictures to their walls...a modest step towards giving juvie a touch of home. (Paging Martha Stewart!) But staff are resistant, says Schiraldi, saying it's too easy for kids to hide drugs behind the pictures. His reply? He says he challenges them to find one child in detention who doesn't already know how to score drugs.

Admirable candor -- but maybe not the kind of remark that goes down very well with employees. Schiraldi comes from the world of advocacy, and is clearly on the side of the kids. He may be just what DYRS needs. Or he may be just another in a long line of short-termers.