ALEXANDER LOCKUP

Extended stays at youth lockup off state's radar

Division doesn’t track them

He was 13 when he entered the state's largest youth lockup.

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The Arkansas Division of Youth Services had decided that to address his misbehavior -- disorderly conduct -- he needed treatment for three to five months at the secure campus. The state set a release date and placed him among about 100 of the division's most violent and troubled youths.

More than three years later, the teenager remains there.

The boy's lengthy stay at the lockup known as the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center and the circumstances that kept him there have prompted monitors from the Disability Rights Center of Arkansas to look deeper into whether other youths are staying months or even years past their initial release dates.

His case was singled out in a report released Aug. 19 by the group that caught the immediate attention of Youth Services Division officials because it contained allegations that staff members at the lockup rewarded youths with candy bars for assaulting other children.

The report also contained details from an interview with the teenager about his more than 2½ years in custody past his initial release date.

Stays as long as that teenager's are rare, Youth Services Division officials said. Few children are held longer than two years total -- the time limit authorized by commitment orders, they said.

But the division couldn't provide specific numbers on how many youths systemwide have stayed past their initial release dates or how many times the division's staff has extended a stay past two years.

Amy Webb, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said the division doesn't keep track of those numbers.

At the lockup in Alexander, monthly reports compiled by G4S Youth Services -- the company that operates the facility -- include a line on the top page for "Youth exceeding LOS," the acronym for "length of stay." On each report from February to July, the line is filled in with the letters "NA," according to copies obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under the state Freedom of Information Act.

The lack of data is something that youth advocates and researchers say shows that state officials need to take the issue more seriously, particularly because the Youth Services Division has broad power in carrying out the rehabilitation of youthful offenders.

Pat Arthur, an independent consultant who has studied Arkansas' juvenile justice system, said the teenager's story is nothing new at the lockup near Alexander.

"It's so depressingly not unique," she said.

"It's for decades been true that they are putting kids in there that don't belong, and the nature of the environment breeds behavioral problems," she said. "Kids are staying too long, and it's hurting them."

Arthur brought many of these concerns to light in reports she co-wrote in 2008 and 2012 that recommended changes to the state's juvenile justice system.

The reports said too many children were being committed to the state's secure treatment centers for minor offenses and staying too long.

The latest report included a several-page discussion of the division's method of determining a youth's length of stay.

That report noted that in the latter half of 2011, 35 of 102 youths were held an average of 67 days past their release dates. And at least one youth had been held 744 days -- a little more than two years -- past his release date.

Whether that's still the case at the lockup in Alexander will be the focus of continued review by the Disability Rights Center.

In the group's report, the teenager held for more than three years was not identified by name because of confidentiality laws, but the group included a narrative of what he told monitors when they visited with him this summer.

According to the Disability Rights Center's report, the teenager came into state custody for disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Since then, he has remained in custody for increasingly disruptive behavior.

The report noted that his stay has been extended several times because of threats to harm himself and misbehavior, a situation he acknowledged when monitors interviewed him.

"Staff has noted the youth has 'unraveled' and that his adverse behaviors have increased as a result of his unusually long stay," the monitors wrote. "During interviews with DRC staff, he has stated that he is aware that his behavior is what is keeping him at [the lockup], but no one is listening to his pleas for help."

The Disability Rights Center has power under federal law to investigate facilities, such as the lockup in Alexander, that house people with disabilities.

Tom Masseau, the executive director of the Disability Rights Center, said the teenager's case is indicative of how the Youth Services Division handles children who continue to exhibit aggressive behavior.

"If they continue to have assaults or continue to have outbursts, those are weighed against them ... because they're deemed not being able to live in the community," he said.

"Those issues are ... more immediate because of the age of the youth and what they're going through. It's important to get them back with their family, with their relatives and have the treatment they need to be successful," he added.

The group has requested information from the division that would allow its monitors to look for any other youths who have been held similar to the teenager, who spent his middle-school years in custody.

Webb isn't allowed to discuss specific cases but said that any added time is not meant as punishment. Instead, it's about meeting the treatment goals determined for the youths when they're put in state custody.

The process works like this: After a judge issues a commitment order, the Youth Services Division is required to determine within 30 days how long that youth will stay in residential custody.

A youth goes through a psychological assessment, and then a team of up to five Youth Services Division employees reviews the assessment and records detailing the severity of the offense, medical records, past run-ins with the law and other circumstances.

The team uses that information to fill out a matrix that is used to calculate the length of time the youth should stay in state custody receiving treatment -- generally a range of months -- and a maximum release date.

Once the plan is completed, it is presented to a judge for approval.

Webb said the plans dictate how long youths stay, based upon how well they respond to treatment and meeting the goals laid out in their plans.

But if those goals aren't being met, time can be added on, she said.

Webb gave an example of a youth who had been identified as having aggression problems that would need to be resolved as part of a treatment goal.

If the youth is still having outbursts, a caseworker and other division staff members may determine that he needs to spend more time in state custody because he hasn't addressed that goal.

"It's because clearly the treatment of the aggressive behavior has not yet been successful," Webb said. "So they need to continue the treatment."

Scott Tanner, the state's only juvenile justice ombudsman, said he knows there are youths who stay in residential facilities longer than they should and that the division needs to review its files to find them.

"Examine those case histories and determine what we can do to provide some effective strategies to put those youth in less restrictive settings," he said. "That can't be done immediately, but I think that's a critical step."

Webb said the division isn't planning on conducting a comprehensive review to identify youths who have been held for significant periods of time.

The division's main priority is investigating the allegations of abuse at the lockup to determine whether they are valid, she said.

Metro on 08/31/2014

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