The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Federal investigators found that workers at the four locations — the Lansing Residential Center and the Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center in Lansing, N.Y., and two facilities, one for boys and one for girls, at Tryon Residential Center in Johnstown, N.Y. — routinely used physical force to restrain residents, despite rules allowing force only as a last resort.

The report documented dozens of episodes at the four centers in a period of less than two years that resulted in serious injuries, including broken teeth and bones. It found that physical force was often the first response to any act of insubordination by residents, who are all under 16.

“Staff at the facilities routinely used uncontrolled, unsafe applications of force, departing from generally accepted standards,” says the report, which was given to Gov. David A. Paterson on Aug. 14. “Anything from sneaking an extra cookie to initiating a fistfight may result in a full prone restraint with handcuffs,” the report continued. “This one-size-fits-all approach has not surprisingly led to an alarming number of serious injuries to youth, including concussions, broken or knocked-out teeth, and spiral fractures” (bone fractures caused by twisting).

The investigation is the latest blow to New York’s troubled juvenile justice system, which currently detains about 1,000 youths.

In a report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union issued in September 2006, New York’s juvenile residential centers were rated among the worst in the world.

Later that year, an emotionally disturbed teenager, Darryl Thompson, died after two employees at the Tryon center pinned him down on the ground. The death was ruled a homicide, but a grand jury declined to indict the workers. The boy’s mother is suing the state.

During the same period, a separate joint investigation by the state inspector general and the Tompkins County district attorney found that the independent ombudsman’s office charged with overseeing juvenile detention centers had virtually ceased to function.

In a statement on Monday, after the report became public, Gladys Carrión, the commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, said that the administration had inherited a juvenile justice system “rife with substantial systemic problems” but acknowledged that efforts so far to overhaul it had fallen short.

“We have made great strides," said Ms. Carrión, "but much more still needs to be done.”

The previous scandals had spurred a major effort within Ms. Carrión’s department, which oversees juvenile residential centers, to overhaul the system. It reconstituted the ombudsman’s office and issued clearer policies on the use of physical force, leading to a sharp drop in instances where restraints were applied. The department has also required new training for the staffs at juvenile detention centers.

Officials have also sought to close down centers that were underused and redirect resources to counseling and other services, as other states have done, though they have faced fierce resistance from public employees’ unions and their allies in the Legislature. Last year, Mr. Paterson appointed a commission to recommend further changes.

The report by federal investigators revealed that despite those changes, problems at some of the centers remain severe. Under federal law, New York has 49 days to respond with a plan of action to comply with the report’s recommendations. If the state does not meet the deadline, the Justice Department can initiate a lawsuit that could result in a federal takeover of the state’s juvenile residential centers.

In one case described in the report, a youth was forcibly restrained and handcuffed after refusing to stop laughing when ordered to; the youth sustained a cut lip and injuries to the wrists and elbows. One boy, after glaring at a staff member, was forced into a sitting position and his arms were secured behind his back with such force that his collarbone was broken.

Another youth was restrained eight times in three months despite signs that she might have been contemplating suicide. “In nearly every one of the eight incidents,” the report found, “the youth was engaged in behaviors such as head banging, putting paper clips in her mouth, tying a string around her neck, etc.”

Officials at the centers also routinely failed to follow state rules requiring that instances in which force is used be reviewed after the fact. In some cases, the same staff member involved in an episode conducted the review. And even when a review determined that excessive force had been used, the staff members responsible sometimes faced no punishment.

In one case, it was recommended that a youth counselor with a documented record of using excessive force should be fired after throwing a youth to the ground with such force that the youth’s chin required stitches. But after the counselor’s union intervened, the punishment was downgraded to a letter of reprimand, an $800 fine and a two-week suspension that was itself suspended.

The report also found that state officials failed to provide youths in detention with adequate counseling and mental health treatment, something the vast majority of residents require. Three-quarters of residents enter New York’s juvenile justice system with drug or alcohol problems, more than half have diagnosed psychological problems and a third have developmental disabilities, according to figures published by Office of Children and Family Services.

“The majority of psychiatric evaluations at the four facilities did not come close to meeting” professional standards, investigators determined, and “typically lacked basic, necessary information.”

In many instances, a single resident received several different or conflicting diagnoses — and correspondingly different regimens of psychotropic drugs — from different psychiatrists or counselors. The medications were dispensed without rigorous monitoring. Typically, parents were not offered an opportunity to give their informed consent for the treatment.

One 15-year-old, according to the report, was on six medications at once, with no record of an agreed-upon diagnosis or description of the symptoms the drugs were intended to target. Another resident, a boy who was mentally ill, told a doctor that he thought he might be pregnant.

“Despite this significant incident,” the report noted, “it appears that the youth’s belief that he was pregnant and the possibility that he was delusional was not communicated to the treating psychiatrist. It is unknown whether this was addressed in the youth’s individual therapy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/nyregion/25juvenile.html?_r=1&hp