Justice Department study faults state managementCenter endangers juveniles, U.S. says By Greg Garland October 7, 2006 Youths held at the state-run Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center “suffer significant harm and risk of harm” from violence because there isn’t enough staff on hand, and behavior management and treatment plans are inadequate, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice. The report says the state has run the 144-bed detention center on North Gay Street in an unconstitutional manner. Specifically, it says that the state has:
“The pervasiveness and seriousness of the violence at the Justice Center appears to result primarily from an inadequate behavior management plan, chronic shortages in trained direct-care staff, and the presence of environmental security hazards,” the Justice Department report says. The report, which was based on findings from inspections conducted last fall, was dated Aug. 7. However, it was not released at that time by the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services or the federal Justice Department officials. Maryland officials provided a copy when The Sun learned about the report this week and requested a copy. Juvenile Services spokesman Edward Hopkins said his agency did not feel it was the state’s responsibility to release the report, because it was done by a federal agency. The U.S. agency began investigating the center last summer after advocates and others complained that youths were being mistreated and that the facility was unsafe and not adequately staffed. The report comes at a time when crime policies have become a major issue in this year’s gubernatorial race. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. promised when he ran for office four years ago to reform the state’s long-dysfunctional juvenile services system. Juvenile Services Secretary Kenneth C. Montague Jr. said that the federal report reflects conditions that investigators found during inspections a year ago, and that staffing and other issues they raised have been addressed since then. “The Department of Juvenile Services does not believe that the findings detailed in the report reflect current conditions and practices at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center,” Montague said. He added, “DJS is confident that the youth at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center are at no risk of harm and that there are no systemic constitutional violations at the center.” Other juvenile services officials said the youth-on-youth assault rate at the justice center has declined significantly in recent months and is now close to the national average. Persisting concerns The state’s independent monitor of juvenile facilities, Katherine A. Perez, wrote Montague a letter about the Baltimore center Aug. 31 in which she noted “the ongoing issue of staffing shortages and the threat to life, health and safety this presents to children.” The letter from Perez, who resigned in September to become police chief in Bowie, accompanied a report by her office detailing an incident in which a 15-year-old boy was beaten in his room at the center by at least a half-dozen youths and the staff either did not know or did not stop the attack. Stacey Gurian-Sherman, an advocate for juveniles held by the state, said staffing and safety remain a problem at the center, which houses juveniles accused of assault, drug dealing and other serious crimes while they await court appearances or other placement. “It hasn’t been fixed,” she said. “Every time they say a problem is in the past, there is a new report that proves they are dead wrong. They are in a constant state of denial because they are politically scared and cannot accept responsibility for the mess they have on their hands.” Among other findings, the federal report says that the state “fails to adequately protect youths from youth-on-youth assaults and suicide risks” at the juvenile justice center, and that youth-on-youth violence is “unacceptably high.” “We reviewed several incidents involving several attackers and lone victims,” the report says. “The attacks appeared to be both brazen and premeditated. This reflects that the system is so ineffective that certain youths feel comfortable in orchestrating such activity.” It cites several incidents in which groups of youths repeatedly hit and kicked a victim in front of staff and says that chairs, brooms and makeshift knives have been used to inflict serious injuries. “In at least two incidents involving chairs, youths required treatment at hospital emergency rooms and one of the victims required emergency surgery for brain trauma,” the report states. The Justice Department report gives state officials credit for taking steps to address chronic understaffing at the center. It says that the direct-care staff vacancy rate averaged 42 percent for the last six months of 2004, but that the vacancy rate averaged 10 percent in the last six months of 2005. Montague said the federal report took state officials by surprise. Justice Department consultants who conducted the inspections in September and October last year had left the impression they found no problems that would rise to the level of a constitutional violation that might require further federal monitoring, he said. Montague said juvenile services officials plan to meet with Justice Department officials next month and hope to get them to reconsider their position. A violent city “This facility is in one of the most violent cities in this country,” he said. Moyer defended the administration’s efforts to reform juvenile services, saying the system was in much worse shape before Ehrlich took office. He pointed to a scandal that led to the closing of boot camps for juvenile offenders in 1999 as an example. “This department is light-years ahead of where it was, and it’s going in the right direction,” Moyer said. He noted that the administration has closed most of the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore County, and has reduced the number of youths held at the Cheltenham Youth Facility in Prince George’s County. The state also opened two 24-bed juvenile detention centers – one on the Eastern Shore and the other in Western Maryland – during Ehrlich’s tenure, Moyer said. “We’re very satisfied with the progress we’ve made over the past four years,” he said. greg.garland@baltsun.com Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun |
