By CHARLIE SMITH
News Editor
A recent U.S. Justice Department report alleges the Leflore County Juvenile Detention Center is violating youths’ constitutional rights by “systemic, egregious and dangerous abuses.”
But the judge who oversees the 30-bed facility says many of the claims have already been corrected and a few are simply not true.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division investigated the center in November 2009. It released a 30-page report of its findings on March 31 of this year.
The report identifies problems with shackling juveniles to metal beds, arbitrary punishments, a lack of mental health services for suicidal youth and wanting educational offerings, among other things.
It gives some startling examples.
nTwo officers chained a 13-year-old to a bed in October 2008 after he began kicking his cell door and cursing. They later entered the cell to find he had defecated and thrown feces on the window.
nIn June 2008, one juvenile repeatedly knocked on her cell door in an attempt to alert officers that another girl was attempting suicide. But the two officers on duty, one of whom was smoking a cigarette, ignored her until she began screaming. They then discovered the other girl had tied a blanket tightly around her neck and a railing on the ceiling. After the noose was removed, the officer who had been smoking told the girls not to tell anyone about the incident and bribed them to keep quiet by allowing them to spend several hours eating snacks and playing computer games.
nThe report described the cells as “extremely dirty, containing torn mattresses, and the toilets in the cells were not adequately cleaned.”
The report also criticizes the center’s educational component. State law requires juveniles to receive at least five hours per day of school Monday through Friday.
Students at the detention center reported receiving classes only Monday through Wednesday until the week of the Justice Department’s investigation. Beginning that week, the center added instruction on Thursday and reserved Friday for watching TV or movies.
An “inordinate amount of time” is spent playing cards or dominoes, the report said. It said a lack of stimulation leads to misbehavior.
As a result of the many missteps, the Justice Department recommends changes. Those include ending restraints, instituting better procedures for doling out punishments and reporting grievances, providing better training for staff and cleaner living conditions, and offering a full range of educational services.
However, the report is outdated in some ways. For one thing, it’s addressed to Leflore County Supervisor Robert Moore and refers to Moore as chair of the Board of Supervisors, a position he hasn’t held since January 2008.
More substantially, the violations it details occurred years ago.
County Judge Kevin Adams, who has overseen the facility since April 2008, calls the report “a fairly decent snapshot” of what was going on a year and a half ago but not now. He said the detention center has made improvements but still has a ways to go.
The center no longer uses physical restraints, has made fairly significant staffing changes and has updated its grievance procedures since the investigation, according to Adams.
And Adams said two incidents that the report alleges happened in May 2010 never occurred. One account involves a youth being hogtied to a bed after arguing with detention officers, and the other deals with an officer allegedly beating a youth until the juvenile wailed and cried.
“Those two incidents did not happen in Leflore County,” Adams said.
The judge said many of the goals outlined in the report are “aspirational” and limited by the center’s budget and its aging facility, located across from the Leflore County Courthouse. He said he hopes to get a new building once the economy turns.
Leflore County runs the detention center for male and female youth between 10 and 17. It contracts with 19 other Mississippi counties to hold their juvenile offenders as well.
“I think we’re running one of the better facilities in the state, even given our limitations,” Adams said.
He said he tends to agree with the Justice Department’s criticism of the educational services offered at the detention center, but he said he has little control over that because it’s run by the Leflore County School District.
The school district sends a teacher, Samuel Johnson, and an assistant, who run what Adams calls a one-room schoolhouse for students ranging from seventh through 11th grades, most of whom read on an elementary level, according to Adams. He said Johnson is certified in several areas, including special education, and does a good job with the resources he’s given.
Adams said the Justice Department hadn’t contacted the center since investigators left following the November 2009 investigation, but in the meantime the facility performed a self-assessment, which involved about 15 people from the community with differing expertise. That group found things to improve and issued a report immediately, Adams said.
For example, someone from the state Department of Health had concerns about food temperatures (the detention center contracts for meals with Corrections Corp. of America). Based on that, the facility bought infrared thermometers and now sends food back if it’s not hot enough, Adams said.
The Justice Department report thanked the detention center’s staff for their helpful and professional conduct during the investigation.
“We have every reason to believe that the County and the staff of LCJDC are committed to remedying deficiencies at the facility,” the report states.
However, at the end it threatens a lawsuit within 49 days of the county’s receipt of the report “in the unexpected event that we are unable to reach a resolution.” It said federal lawyers will be contacting Joyce Chiles, board attorney for Leflore County, to discuss the next steps in detail.
Chiles declined comment, and a Department of Justice spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Adams said he doesn’t envision restrictions being placed.
“We certainly want to work with them, so I can’t foresee any type of lawsuit or even consent decree ever being necessary,” he said.
State Rep. Linda Whittington, D-Schlater, who serves on the House Juvenile Justice Committee, said she would call immediately and find out about the report after being informed of it Wednesday afternoon.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has filed lawsuits about abuse in juvenile facilities in Mississippi before, sent a copy of the Justice Department report to news media.
“The Department of Justice has exposed horrific and blatantly unconstitutional conditions children confined to the Leflore County Juvenile Detention Center face every day. This is not just a problem in Leflore County — detention centers throughout the state are rife with abusive conditions that harm our children and expose taxpayers to tremendous legal liability,” Jody Owens, an SPLC attorney, said in a prepared statement. “Juvenile Detention is at a point of crisis in Mississippi and the only out is for counties to take immediate action to end abuse in juvenile detention center and to develop less expensive, more effective alternatives to traditional jail cell detention.”
Adams said he had a conference call scheduled for 9 a.m. today with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a Baltimore-based private charity that helps vulnerable children, to discuss improvement plans with its experts.
• Contact Charlie Smith at csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
