Juvenile detention center practices ‘deplorable’

Molly Ball

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 | 3:34 a.m.

Practices at the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center are "deplorable" and "appalling," with a severe lack of mental health services and an overly punitive approach, two national nonprofit groups said after an inspection.

Youths detained at Clark County's juvenile hall are too often pepper-sprayed and strapped to chairs by detention workers, the groups said in their report.

"County officials must put an end to these practices, which clearly violate the civil rights of detained youth," the report states.

The county's juvenile justice system must reduce use of "dangerous, punitive, and counter-productive methods of control" against jailed juveniles, according to the report on the inspection by the Youth Law Center and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The nonprofit agencies' study, sought by the county, comes in the wake of continuing controversy over the detention center's first suicide in nearly 30 years.

Sixteen-year-old Brittany Kish strangled herself with bedsheets despite being designated on suicide watch in April. Four workers have been recommended for discipline because of the lapses that allowed her death to occur, but the county maintains that its policies were adequate.

The new report is based on site visits and interviews conducted in May and reviews of detention records and policies. Its authors at the two organizations could not be reached for comment.

Detention workers use the spray and the immobilizing chair in a variety of circumstances, the inspectors found.

"Staff use the restraint chair when youth say they want to hurt themselves, bang their heads against a wall or door, refuse to move from one location to another, yell in their rooms, are disrespectful of staff, or fail to follow instructions," the report states.

"Staff uses O.C. (pepper) spray to break up fights, but also uses it on youth who are suicidal, or who refuse to go into their rooms. ... Staff spend little time, if any, trying to de-escalate the situation before applying theses (sic) restraints."

Once sprayed and restrained, youths often do not have the painful spray wiped out of their eyes for 10 minutes. They are often strapped into the chair with handcuffs, leg cuffs and crisscrossing straps for "an hour or more," the report states.

The use of the spray and the chair should be ended quickly, the inspectors say, and detention workers should be trained in conflict de-escalation techniques.

Kirby Burgess, outgoing director of the county's juvenile justice services, said he agreed with the report's conclusions and said his department was already working to address the problems.

"We want to do what's right and make changes," he said.

Burgess, who is retiring in September, noted that the department asked for the inspection, opening itself up for criticism out of sincere desire to improve.

The report will "help us identify what our strengths and weaknesses are and help us come up with solutions," Burgess said. "Some of them are easy and some of them are going to take more time, but we're committed to doing them all."

Pam Towers, a senior management analyst for the juvenile justice department, said some of the recommendations made in the report have already been implemented. For example, books and magazines have been provided to youths isolated in their cells.

The report criticizes the facility's "confinement of youth in their rooms, often for days at a time, with no reading material or anything else to occupy their time."

In addition, the lack of mental health staff is being remedied, Burgess said. The department is asking the county to fund five new mental health positions, four of which would go to the detention center, and an expanded budget to contract with outside mental health workers for services.

Currently, the department has six therapists and a supervising psychologist, none of whom is assigned full-time to the detention center. Their principal duty is to conduct psychiatric evaluations of youths in the system.

"As it stands right now, we stretch that staff pretty thin," Burgess said.

The report does praise the juvenile detention center, saying its inmates feel that they are safe and treated fairly. The department has done a good job of keeping gang problems out of the facility; living areas are clean; records are well kept; youths get ample outdoor exercise; officials are committed to change; and staffers "genuinely care about youth in detention."

But at heart, the center's ethos is flawed, the report says. "The culture of this institution is based on control," it states. Policies focus on punishing bad behavior rather than promoting good, it says.

Juvenile Judge William Voy said the report is not discouraging because it comes at a time when the juvenile justice system is already changing for the better.

"There's a lot of warts in it (the report), for lack of a better word, but not one of the criticisms is without a solution," he said. "There are some positives in the report -- mostly the fact that we have started making some changes and we invited them into this process."

The department is in the second year of a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Baltimore-based Casey Foundation, which works to help disadvantaged children. The grant is aimed at providing alternatives to detention for juveniles accused of crimes, in order to keep them from becoming career criminals.

The San Francisco-based Youth Law Center works to improve conditions for youth in state institutions and systems. It is different from the National Center for Youth Law, which has threatened to sue the county over foster care conditions.