Division of Juvenile Services Story Archives - Page 2 of 2

W.Va. Juvenile Center Damaged During Riot

Authorities are investigating a riot that damaged the Lorrie Yeager Jr. Juvenile Center in Parkersburg.

Parkersburg Police Chief Joseph Martin tells media outlets that six juveniles in custody at the facility destroyed the interior of the commons area. The youths broke windows, destroyed heating and cooling ductwork and broke sprinkler heads away from piping.

Martin says the juveniles were confined to the commons area and there was no threat to the public.

The riot occurred Tuesday evening. Martin says the center’s staff regained control in about two hours.

The West Virginia Division of Juvenile Services says the investigation is ongoing.

State working to increase security at some juvenile facilities

A judge called the inner workings of the Gene Spadaro Juvenile Center “concerning” after receiving a report from a court monitor for the Adjudicated Juvenile Rehabilitation Review Commission.

The Commission was established in June of 2011 to examine the operations and programs of the Division of Juvenile Services facilities across the state. Cindy Largent-Hill is a member of the commission and visited the Spadaro Juvenile Center in Fayette County Monday.

Judge Omar Aboulhosn, Marty Wright, who serves as counsel for DJS, and Lydia Milnes and Dan Hedges of the public interest law firm Mountain State Justice received copies of the report and discussed its findings during a hearing in Kanawha County Circuit Court Tuesday.

“When I read this report, when I talked with my monitor about it, I was kind of surprised to hear the staff being so vocal, saying please help us. We’re afraid someone’s going to get hurt,” Aboulhosn said.

“To hear that they’re afraid the residents are going to take over the facility? That’s pretty stunning,” he said.

When the state decided to close the Salem Industrial Youth Home and, subsequently, Aboulhosn ordered the closure of the Harriet B. Jones Treatment Center this summer on the same campus, juvenile residents were transferred to facilities around the state.

Those with behavioral or mental health issues, called wellness residents, were transferred to the James H. “Tiger” Morton Juvenile Center in Kanawha County and convicted sex offenders were relocated to the Sam Perdue Juvenile Center in Mercer County.

In order to make room for the residents at those facilities, others were shifted between centers and now, Stephanie Bond, acting director of DJS, said staff members at Spadaro have to deal with new types of offenders.

“The staff is used to having lower end status offenders. Our goal was to put lower end detention kids there, but due to the crowding at our more secure detention centers we haven’t been able to move them as we wanted to do,” Bond told the judge.

Not all juvenile facilities in the state have the same security features. Higher end detention centers, like the Lorrie Yeager, Jr., Center in Parkersburg, W.Va., are called hardware secure facilities, meaning they have additional security measures at entrances and fences with barbed wire, while Spadaro is a staff secure center meant for less violent offenders and therefore doesn’t have the same security features.

“The building is not equipped appropriately and staff members know it will take time,” Hill told Aboulhosn, “but they are in dire need now.”

Bond said the state is working to upgrade the Spadaro Center to a hardware secure level, but it is taking time.

Aside from the staff learning to handle a new type of resident and upgrading security, Bond said three residents at Spadaro were acting as ring leaders, egging on their peers. Those residents are being transferred to more secure facilities, including Yeager and the Chick Buckbee Center in Hampshire County.

Wright, however, adds this is problem staff members are seeing at facilities across the state. Over the past year the court has ordered procedural changes within the DJS system and Wright says residents are starting to feel empowered.

“We noticed a trend starting to happen where there’s a belief that you can’t touch me, you can’t do anything to me,” Wright said. “I’ll go complain and get you all in trouble type atmosphere from the residents and now we’re starting to see the matriculation of that mentality going to the extreme.”

Wright told the court it is time to bring some concreteness to the matter.

“We need to bring some calm to the situation and let things start taking its course and get some finality in terms of what these are the rules,” Wright said. “Let’s start implementing them so residents see them.”

Aboulhosn agreed. He has given DJS and Mountain State two weeks to finalize an agreement on the handling of due process rights, education and recreation.

From there, he said he’ll ask counsel to submit its final fact findings and decide how to appropriately dismiss the case.

Due process, education, recreation focuses of DJS hearing

Judge Omar Aboulhosn heard what may be the last evidence in the case filed by Mountain State Justice against the Division of Juvenile Services.

Mountain State asked three juvenile residents to testify in an evidentiary hearing Tuesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court.

B.M., identified only by his initials for the court, is a juvenile resident of the Sam Perdue Juvenile Center in Princeton. He is one of the 25 residents relocated after Aboulhosn order the closure of the Harriet B. Jones Treatment Center in Salem over the summer.

B.M. testified the Perdue facility staff follows their meal schedules about 60 percent of the time, serving things like pepperoni rolls, chips and prepackaged cakes for dinner when their cook is off or on sick leave.

S.Y. is an 18-year-old resident of the Donald R. Kuhn Juvenile Center in Boone County and has been in the custody of DJS for over a year. S.Y. testified to support a grievance he filed when the residents of his wing were locked in their rooms for almost two hours. He said residents were told it was a punishment for an individual’s behavior in the cafeteria.

L.B. is a 19-year-old resident of the Northern Regional Detention Center in Wheeling where she said their indoor rec room has only 3 or 4 working exercise machines and she currently has no access to additional vocational training because she has already received her high school diploma. The center now only offers high school or GED classes.

These residents were all called on to testify about the quality of life for juveniles in the custody of DJS. Their issues became concerns not just of the public interest group, but also of the state, as the two are working on the details of an agreement due to Aboulhosn in two weeks.

The Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety released a draft that starts with new policies. These policies are to ensure residence have due process rights when they file grievances and have disciplinary hearings.

“Previously, we were using the notice of charges form. We felt strongly that that met what was in the court order because it gave a brief summary or description of the charges,” said Stephanie Bond, acting director of DJS. “Mr. Hedges and Miss. Milnes disagreed with that.”

Dan Hedges and Lydia Milnes serve as counsel for Mountain State.

Bond said DJS will now give residents a full copy of their incident reports at least 24 hours prior to their hearing. Hearing officers will be required to give residents a written decision afterward.

Also as part of the agreement, DJS is seeking five new employees in their central office in Charleston who will travel the state to hold these disciplinary hearings.

“What we have been doing is trying to find a person who is a non-direct care staff to conduct the hearings to keep it as fair as possible,” Bond said, “and in our smaller facilities that’s almost impossible because everybody has contact with the kids, therefore, we have a maintenance worker, but, nonetheless, we are going to make these separate positions.”

The team will not be tied to any one facility with the goal of providing an unbiased handling of complaints.

As for the concerns brought forward by residents in the hearing, nutritionally Bond said facility meals are certified by the Office of Child Nutrition in the state Department of Education and meet national guidelines.

She said lockdowns occur during necessary times to ensure the safety and security of residents, but happen far less often than a year ago.

But the educational opportunities for female residents are a more difficult task to approach. Bond said she is working closely with the Department of Education who provides the academic and vocational training at all state facilities.

The department has completed the process of converting two rooms into classrooms at Northern. They are also taking applications for and hiring teachers to provide business administration classes for residents with diplomas or GEDs. Similar classes are in the works for other facilities in the state as well.

Aboulhosn has also asked counsel to begin working on their final reports reviewing the changes DJS has made over the past year and where they need to go in the future. He said this includes continuing to work with the court monitor or hiring an internal monitor to observe the ten state juvenile centers.

Proposed agreement could mean changes for juvenile offenders

A hearing in Kanawha County Circuit Court will determine whether or not juvenile residents of state facilities will see a difference in the way grievances are handled and an increase in educational opportunities.

Mercer County Judge Omar Aboulhosn will be presented a proposed agreement between the Division of Juvenile Services and Mountain State Justice, a Charleston based public interest law firm whose lawsuit against the division resulted in the closure of the Salem Industrial Home for Youth and later the Harriet B. Jones Treatment Center.

Lawerence Messina, spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, said the tentative agreement includes creating a team located in the Charleston central office. That team will be responsible for traveling the state to hear grievances filed by residents.

The team will not be tied to any one facility with the goal, Messina said, of providing an unbiased handling of complaints.

Messina said the agreement will also help ensure the due process rights of residents by offering changes to disciplinary hearings according to standards laid out by the American Correctional Association.

“These are professional industry standards,” he said. “We looked to them for guidance and believe both sides are on the same page.”

DJS will also propose changes to programming offered in its facilities, including additional vocational training for residents who have received either their high school diploma or GED. Messina said the details of those programs are still being discussed.

Aboulhosn will hear the proposed agreement at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Charleston