Justice Dept. Report Finds Youthful Offenders Abused

GLADYS CARRION: Reforms made, more on way.

A U.S. Justice Department report last week found that staff at four Office of Children and Family Services facilities "consistently used a high degree of force to gain control [of juveniles] in nearly every type of situation."

The four facilities—the Louis Gossett, Jr. Residential Center and the Lansing Residential Center in Ithaca, the Tryon Residential Center and the Tryon Girls Residential Center in Johnstown—were the scenes of incidents where staff resorted to a high degree of force that exceeded the needs of the situation, the Justice Department concluded. These incidents resulted in an excessive number of injuries, according to the report.

'Uncontrolled Use of Force'

"Staff at the facilities routinely used uncontrolled, unsafe applications of force, departing both from generally accepted standards and OCFS policy," the report stated. "Anything from sneaking an extra cookie to initiating a fistfight may result in a full prone restraint with handcuffs.

"This one-size-fits-all control approach has not surprisingly led to an alarming number of serious injuries to youth, including concussions, broken or knocked-out teeth and spinal fractures."

OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion responded that the agency has undergone a complete overhaul since she took the helm.

"This ongoing transformation of juvenile justice includes the implementation of numerous, nationally recognized, evidence-based best practices including shifting from a 'custody and control' model of juvenile justice to a trauma-informed therapeutic model, a new restraint policy, and the hiring of additional mental health workers," she said. "More than 18 months into this transformation, we have made great strides but much more still needs to be done."

CSEA, which represents youth aides, administrative and operational staff at the facilities, stated that OCFS has "suffered from an unfocused mission, poor management, inadequate staffing, resources, training and support."

'Don't Blame Staff'

Its statement continued, "CSEA does not have all the answers but we do know that blaming staff for an ill-conceived system that places them in untenable situations is not acceptable." The union said the state would need to invest staff, resources and training to fix the situation.

"It is naive to believe that all youthful offenders can be rehabilitated in non-secure settings with minimal supervision and lack of consequences for their actions," CSEA stated. "It should be clear that those kinds of circumstances not only put staff at risk but also threaten public safety and make a mockery of the idea of juvenile justice."

The Public Employees Federation, which represents professional staff in the centers including counselors, teachers, social workers and healthcare employees, had a more-favorable response to the report in an Aug. 26 statement. "Much of the report echoes what PEF has been bringing to the attention of legislative leaders and OCFS Commissioner Gladys Carrion for years," it said.

'Staff Shortages Hurt Safety'

"Many of the Justice Department's findings, including extreme deficiencies in mental health care, have been consistently reported by our members," PEF stated. "Staffing shortages in critical case areas directly affecting rehabilitative treatment have aggravated the already-unsafe conditions in the Lansing, Louis Gossett, Jr. and Tryon Residential Centers and all other OCFS facilities statewide."

The union agreed with the report's conclusion of a need for increased training for staff and an overhaul of the mental health program. "Real reforms, however, require real resources," the union stated. "It is this lack of resources that has created the environment which led to many of the issues cited in the report."

PEF also said there were other areas that could have been probed. "There are many more areas of concern, including increased youth-onyouth violence and violence against workers at the facilities. Our members often have been victims of assaults by youths; this has led to an increased number of employees out of work due to injuries, adding to more strain to an already-strained workforce."

Says OCFS Exacerbated Problems

The union, though, said some of the reform has been misguided. "In the Commissioner's zeal to transform the state's system, move youth into communities, and to close state facilities, the effort to address the critical needs of youths has been grossly inadequate, particularly in the areas of mental health and rehabilitative services, staffing and training at those facilities, exacerbating the very conditions she sought to correct," according to PEF. "This has led not only to a deterioration of service levels at the facilities, but to everyone's worst fear, the brutal murder of a young group-home employee by a youth inappropriately placed in a community setting in Lockport, N.Y. This follows the January shooting of a Rochester police officer by a youth placed in a community residence by OCFS and the recent riot and frequent AWOLs from Randolph Children's Home in Cattaraugus County."

Last September, the state created the Task Force on Transforming New York's Juvenile Justice System to investigate, among other things, the conditions of confinement for juveniles across the state. That report is due shortly.

Says Staff Escalated Incidents

The Justice Department report, though, found that in many instances staff escalated minor incidents into bigger problems rather than defusing the situations. "In actuality, in many of the incidents we reviewed and observed during our tour, the team's actions actually intensified the tension to the point where a restraint was employed," the report stated. "As a result, a behavior such as pouring sugar into a glass of orange juice is just as likely to result in a restraint as initiating a fist-fight."

The report details situations where youths were left with serious injuries after response teams were called to subdue them. One youth sustained multiple head injuries, abrasions to both his elbows and a nosebleed after staff forcibly removed him from his room. In another forcible removal, a youth sustained injuries to both cheeks, his chin and neck after an argument about not being allowed to participate in a basketball game. Some of the abuses were so bad that the report concluded youths' Constitutional rights were violated.

"OCFS' restraint policy prohibits staff from entering a youth's room to confront negative behavior except to prevent the youth from physically harming himself/herself," the report stated. "However, there was no evidence or claims by staff in any of the above three incidents that suggested that these youth were threatening or engaging in self-harm."

Slap on Wrist for Abuses

One youth counselor with a record of excessive force was recommended for firing by OCFS superiors after throwing a youth to the ground so hard that stitches were required in the youth's chin. The discipline was downgraded to a letter of reprimand, an $800 fine and a two-week suspension, which was later lifted.

The inquiry comes on the heels of numerous incidents of violence at the 28 state-run juvenile residential centers, which house about 1,000 youths, including the November 2006 death of an emotionally disturbed teenager, Darryl Thompson, 15. The death was ruled a homicide after the teen was pinned to the ground by two employees at the Tryon center.

The State Inspector General found in 2006 that the independent ombudsman's office charged with overseeing youth prison centers had practically stopped functioning. Also that year, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union issued a report that ranked New York's youth residential centers among the worst in the world.

Since then, Ms. Carrion has sought to overhaul the system through a reconstituted ombudsman's office and enforced clearer policies on the use of physical force by employees, which led to a sharp drop in instances where restraints were used.