Protecting Young Offenders From Abuse

Across The Country, Child Advocates Deplore The Conditions In Juvenile Detention Facilities

(AP) 
Supervision does not have to be abusive to be problematic. The absence of supervision creates its own misery.

Advocates say sex among detainees is also a major problem in some facilities, a claim backed by government findings. A U.S. Department of Justice report described sex at the Plainfield Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana as "rampant."

And sometimes suicidal youth or those who want to harm themselves in other ways don't get the personal attention they need.

Mississippi's juvenile correction centers have been under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor since 2005 as part of the settlement to end the lawsuit filed by the federal government.

But a 15-year-old girl on suicide watch at Columbia Training School used a toe nail and the sharpened cap off a tube of toothpaste to carve the words "HATE ME" backward in her forearm. The girl also said she was shackled 12 hours a day, and forced to wear leg restraints to classes, meals and other activities.

Another 15-year-old girl who spent time in Columbia told the AP she was twice groped by a male guard. She said she reported the abuse.

"They told me I was lying," she said with tears streaming down her face. "They told me that I was wrong for reporting it, that I shouldn't have brought it up."

Columbia sits atop a 2,200-acre campus with a manicured lawn that stretches out beneath the shade of oak trees. From a distance, the red-brick buildings and pastoral grounds could pass for those of a boarding school. Indeed, administrators pointed proudly to the fact that 90 percent of the girls got their general education diploma.

"We are giving them skills that they will take well into adulthood," insisted Richard Harris, a deputy administrator with the Mississippi Department of Human Services - a few weeks before the state announced it was closing Columbia "due to issues ranging from adequate staffing to quality of care, and the desire to most efficiently spend taxpayer dollars."

While officials in many states complain that funding can be a major challenge - salaries for guards in Mississippi's juvenile facilities start at $18,000 a year - it will take more than cash to fix the problems.

"What could be done to minimize or reduce these problems?" asked Melissa Sickmund, with the Pittsburgh-based National Center for Juvenile Justice. "Training. Oversight."

Columbia had about 120 staff members and a $5.8 million budget and at times housed only a few dozen girls. At that rate, it costs about $598 a day to house a girl, according to a study by Timothy J. Roche, an expert consultant hired by the state.

There are success stories.

Nancy Molever, an Arizona Juvenile Department of Corrections spokeswoman, said it would have been difficult to improve conditions there - or meet recommendations made by the federal government - without a willingness "to change the culture of the agency" that oversees the juvenile facilities.

Arizona recently emerged from a lawsuit the Justice Department filed after three youngsters committed suicide. Arizona invested $8 million to $10 million in facility improvements and increased the starting annual salary of youth correctional officers to over $30,000, Molever said. The state has also been weeding out employees slow to conform to the new rules, Molever said, but the downside is more employee turnover, which is already a problem nationwide.

Officials in Missouri, which has one of the most highly regarded juvenile correction systems in the country, agree that it takes more than money to run a safe facility.

"It's just a different approach that we take. It's a treatment approach," said Ana Margarita Compain-Romero, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Social Services. "In other states, they take a more punitive approach, more like corrections."

[oldpilot954]

Appropriate childhood discipline is the answer for most kids. By the time they are in their teens it is hard (but not impossible) to reform them. As for the abuse in the correctional facilities, why should it surprise us. I agree that money alone will not change the situation. However, I have to ask myself what kind of personality it takes to be cursed and verbally abused by the inmates for 40 hours a week and get paid $18,000 a year. If you want someone to act like a professional (which is exactly what the guards I know are) then you need to pay them like a professional.

[my2centss]

"Some youth view sexual relationships with staff members as consensual, not as adults in positions of authority abusing their power."

Kinda like Bill Clinton?

[random_radar]

There is a reason that CRUEL and unusual punishment is unconstitutional. The founding fathers didn''t want America to develop the abusive prison system that existed in Europe.

Well, they failed to stop it. Vindictive and abusive human nature possesses all government everywhere in all ages. We don''t see what an awful civilization we have become.

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by libsrweak at 02:03 AM

It be even better if parents didn''t have to work day and night to pay for things like the high price of housing, the high price of health care, and the high price of gas and heating bills. Imagine, the could actually be home with their children. Then they could say NO to all those things.

[tbweb]

Environments like this need Internet Web Cams so that anyone who wants to look inside 24/7 can. The best protection from this type of institutional abuse is public exposure.

[libsrweak]

to solve this problem on a long term and more lasting effect, parents needs to tell thier kids that "NO" it is not okay to be sexually premiscious.."NO" they cannot go out and smoke dope.."NO" they cannot hang out with thier buddies that late at night..we need to teach our kids responsibility and accountability..I know its harder to do that that just simply say "they have the right" because its a lazy way out of our OWN responsibility to our own kids..