Bound and punished

Pepper-spray, Wrap combo ‘barbaric’

Sitting in the restraint at the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center, the girl could barely move.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Listing of major incidents at the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center.

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Illustrations showing the use of the Wrap in Yell County.

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Her hands were cuffed behind her back, her legs bound and her chest strapped in a harness. A strap connected the harness to her feet.

Even tied up, an employee thought the girl was "belligerent," and that's why a sheriff's deputy pepper-sprayed her, an internal report shows.

The girl's case is one of more than 100 since 2011 in which detention center staff or local law enforcement officers who assisted them used restraints, pepper spray and sometimes a combination of both in dealing with youths who misbehaved by not following directions, banging on walls, kicking doors, yelling or name-calling, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette investigation found.

Internal incident reports obtained from the youth lockup under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act reveal a facility where top administrators authorized, and in some cases participated in, extreme punishments for youths, in violation of state juvenile-detention standards.

A juvenile-justice expert called the methods "barbaric" and a violation of children's rights.

On Friday, a spokesman for the state Division of Youth Services said the agency supports an independent investigation into at least five individual incidents identified by the newspaper in the course of its reporting.

The Democrat-Gazette published the first results of an investigation last month that detailed how juvenile-detention officers at the Yell County lockup routinely used The Wrap -- the restraint used on the girl -- as well as a mechanical restraint chair to punish youths during the first nine months of this year.

The latest findings, however, expose even more severe treatment for youths than previously reported.

In one case last year, the facility's director pepper-sprayed a youth for "mouthing."

In another, a staff member put a youth in The Wrap for six hours with only two breaks -- one of 23 minutes after two hours and one of 12 minutes after a second two-hour period. The director authorized the punishment, according to the internal report on the incident.

In July 2013, a boy exhibiting suicidal behavior was put in The Wrap, but instead of the device calming him down, the boy continued to harm himself by banging his head on the ground.

The facility's director, Kristi Padgett, decided to change tactics.

"Director Padgett advised to remove him from the WRAP so he could no longer bang his head. Once removed he was pepper sprayed," a staff member wrote in the report.

It doesn't say what happened next.

Another report indicates that a staff member used handcuffs and shackles to hogtie youths.

In May 2012, a juvenile detention officer wrote in a report that he responded to two youths throwing books and hitting each other: "Both juveniles were hog tied and left that way for 2 hrs."

Detention center staff members let the boys loose to eat. But because the boys had been disrespectful and disruptive while tied up, they went back into restraints for two more hours after the meal.

Mark Soler, the executive director of the Center for Children's Law and Policy, who has 36 years of experience investigating conditions at juvenile facilities, said pepper-spraying a youth while he's in The Wrap is "inhumane" and "barbaric."

"A child who is in The Wrap is no physical danger to anybody ... and to pepper-spray any individual, but especially a child, when they're already immobile, is absolutely horrendous, and there's no justification for it," Soler said.

"It is child abuse, and it is a violation of the children's civil rights."

Bob Fleischner, the assistant director of the Center for Public Representation, also has extensive experience reviewing juvenile detention centers. He called the use of restraints inside the lockup "dangerous" and "anti-therapeutic."

"It smacks of 'I'm going to tie you down because I don't like what you're saying.' Why somebody gets pepper-sprayed when they're in restraint is beyond me. All pepper spray is going to do is stop them from talking because they're too busy crying," Fleischner said.

Soler and Fleischner were especially critical of five incidents detailed in reports obtained by the newspaper, including the use of pepper spray on the girl who was in The Wrap and the hogtying of the two boys.

Both men said the instances were examples of civil-rights violations.

Independent review?

A spokesman for Yell County Sheriff Bill Gilkey said last week that he believes the problems identified by the newspaper have already been addressed by retraining the staff and removing pepper spray and The Wrap from the juvenile detention center.

But Amy Webb, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services -- which oversees the Youth Services Division -- said Friday that the sheriff had informed agency officials that he was discussing the possibility of requesting an independent investigation into the five incidents.

"DHS supports such an investigation," Webb said, noting that the agency expected to know more on Monday.

Webb said agency officials weren't aware of the incidents until the newspaper provided the documents to the agency and began asking questions about them.

In response to those incidents, Webb said the agency is considering putting a stop to housing youths at the Yell County lockup.

Removing the youths "is a possibility given that there were very serious and inappropriate incidents of which DYS was never informed," Webb said. "The county's response to the latest incidents will drive our level of confidence in the commitment to systemic changes."

The county-operated facility holds youths who have been committed to the Youth Services Division and are awaiting bed space at state residential treatment centers or who have been temporarily removed from the rehabilitative facilities because they violated rules.

Consequently, youths committed to the Youth Services Division for serious felonies, such as rape and murder, are housed in the Yell County lockup along with children who got in trouble at school.

Since the newspaper published the first part of its investigation in November, the Youth Services Division has discovered that at least 20 children in its custody were placed in The Wrap since January without the agency's knowledge.

More recently obtained incident reports and payment invoices indicate that more youths in state custody -- who were supposed to be getting mental and behavioral health treatment -- were among those punished with The Wrap or other methods.

The payment invoices show that the division housed an average of 21 youths per month over the past four years at the 24-bed facility, and the state paid more than $1.2 million to do so.

'Dangerous practices'

The reports obtained by the newspaper detail the staff members' versions of events at the Yell County facility and include narratives of when youths broke rules and how the staff responded.

Identifying information was removed from the reports before the newspaper acquired them, but the reports include the dates, times, descriptions of the incidents and the employees involved. The reports do not indicate the youths' ages.

More than 800 reports reviewed by the newspaper paint a picture of a work environment that is often stressful and frustrating, and a facility where youths with varying degrees of mental-health disorders and various levels of criminality intermingle with one another.

Staff members wrote that they were routinely insulted, challenged and, at times, assaulted by youths, some of whom were the size of large adults.

Fights among the youths were common. Female staff members, in particular, endured derogatory and often sexually demeaning comments from youths at the lockup. Youths also at times threatened to harm or kill staff members and their families.

The frustrations at times boiled over into staff reports.

"They just don't listen to us!!" a staff member wrote after relating how a youth had talked back to her.

As for the youths, the reports contain descriptions of fights, hazing, gang activity, threats of sexual assault, and suicidal comments and behavior.

Staff members most often addressed disruptive behavior by placing youths on "LDTFN," an internal abbreviation for "Lock Down 'Til Further Notice," meaning the youths were confined to their cells.

Most of the reports don't indicate how long the youths were locked in their cells, but some indicate 24 hours or more, which is allowed under state juvenile detention standards as long as the facility's director approves.

Lockup employees also used less restrictive measures, such as loss of weekend privileges and recreation time, or "cool down" times, during which a disruptive youth was put in a holding cell to calm down.

But employees began to use The Wrap more frequently each year since 2011, and the circumstances in which staff members used the restraint broadened to include less severe behavior.

Guards inconsistently applied discipline. At times, youths would be placed on lockdown or would lose privileges for behavior that would earn other youths time in The Wrap or a burst of pepper spray.

Between 2011 and October 2014, detention center staff or law enforcement officers used The Wrap, pepper spray, a mechanical restraint chair or a combination of these measures more than 130 times, according to the reports.

In at least 106 of those instances, staff members justified their actions by documenting youths' behaviors that didn't immediately threaten the safety of guards or the youths.

In 34 incidents, The Wrap or pepper spray was used in response to solely verbal threats or name-calling, vulgar gestures or throwing soft objects, such as blankets, toilet paper or socks.

Soler said using restraints in response to that kind of misbehavior clearly indicated that the facility was focused on punishing youths with little regard for exposing them to harm.

"These are dangerous practices that have no place in appropriate juvenile facilities," he said.

In addition to physical pain, Soler said, the use of the restraint devices could cause emotional trauma for the youths, particularly those with mental-health disorders, histories of physical or sexual abuse, or both.

"These kinds of restraints often bring them flashbacks or exacerbate problems that they have because [the restraints are] so restrictive and unnecessary," Soler said.

Pepper spray used

The reports also show that center administrators, Yell County patrol deputies and Danville police officers were involved in using pepper spray and The Wrap on youths.

Padgett, who resigned this fall, authorized the practices, as did Robin Barefield, the facility's new director who was formerly second-in-command.

Barefield declined to be interviewed for this article and deferred questions to the sheriff's office.

Padgett, who has since been hired by the Human Services Department in a position where she doesn't supervise children, didn't respond to messages left on her cellphone requesting comment.

"[A youth] was mouthing Director Padgett so she pepper sprayed him," a staff member wrote in December 2013.

The youth then made threats while being cleaned up, and Padgett overheard while on the telephone. She then had him placed in The Wrap.

Six months earlier, Padgett was involved in another incident involving pepper spray and The Wrap.

According to a report from July 2013, staff members doing a bed check found a boy in his cell with his blanket wrapped around his neck attempting to choke himself.

The staff members immediately entered the cell and removed the blanket, but the boy began scratching his arm with a toothpaste tube, which the guard also removed.

The guards then placed the boy in a suicide-prevention gown, which is designed so that it cannot be fashioned into a makeshift noose or other means of harm.

Once in the gown, the boy started beating on his door, the report said. After being told "multiples times" to stop, the staff members put the boy in The Wrap, but the boy continued to try to harm himself.

"Once in restraints he began banging his head on the ground and continued to act out," the staff member wrote. "Director Padgett advised to remove him from the WRAP so he could no longer bang his head. Once removed he was pepper sprayed."

While assistant director, Barefield was involved in the incident involving the girl who was pepper-sprayed while in The Wrap.

In January 2012, a staff member wrote that a girl had been kicking her door and using profanity.

The girl was warned several times to calm down, but she continued to act out. The staff member told Barefield, who gave permission to place the girl in The Wrap.

The girl was put in the device and moved to the facility's visitation room. Barefield arrived at the lockup soon after with Yell County Sheriff's Deputy Jesse Flores.

"Asst. Administrator Robin Barefield entered visitation to speak with [the girl]. [The girl] became belligerent with Robin while she was trying to speak with her. At this point, Officer Flores administered pepper spray," the staff member wrote.

"[The girl] was immediately removed from the WRAP and placed in decon shower."

'Bigger than we are'

In response to questions about these incidents, Capt. John Foster, who serves as Gilkey's chief deputy, said he couldn't say whether the department conducted any internal investigation of employees for misusing restraint devices or pepper spray.

Foster wrote in an email that the sheriff's office believes that better training for staff members will solve many of the problematic uses of restraints and pepper spray.

"We've previously stated that we have had a change in leadership at the facility and we agree with the DYS review and assessment of past incidents that the current re-training will correct the past issues," Foster wrote, referring to a recent Youth Services Division review.

Foster also noted that the sheriff's office removed pepper spray from the youth lockup on Oct. 1, about the same time that it removed The Wrap.

The moves came after the Youth Services Division demanded that the lockup stop using The Wrap because it was being used as punishment, a violation of state juvenile-detention standards.

"The decision to remove [pepper spray] was made in conjunction with the change in leadership to better conform with the new direction of the facility," Foster wrote, noting that the sheriff's office made the decision before The Wrap became public in newspaper accounts.

When asked specifically about the hogtying incident, Foster said the sheriff's office's current "training includes precautions against the use of handcuffs in combination with shackles in positions sometimes clumsily referred to as 'hog-tying' that would tend to increase the risk of positional asphyxia."

Danville Police Chief Rick Padgett, who is Kristi Padgett's husband, said none of the city's officers were disciplined for using pepper spray or helping the sheriff's employees put youths in The Wrap at the juvenile detention center.

The reports show that Danville police officers responded about 15 times to the center, most often to help staff members put youths in The Wrap or administer pepper spray.

In at least two of those cases, Danville officers pepper-sprayed youths for not obeying their commands -- a boy refused to sit down after being told to, and a girl refused to move away from her cell door.

Rick Padgett said the officers are taught that pepper spray is a tool to use when there's a threat of harm to the officer or someone else. That includes a combative person, and "a lot of times, it's better than putting your hands on them," he said.

When asked about the two incidents, Rick Padgett said he didn't recall them but that he would review copies of the incident reports provided by the newspaper.

"These guys aren't pepper-spray happy. It's not used much. We don't have to," the chief said, noting that he wasn't aware of any of his officers deviating from Police Department policy in their use of pepper spray at the lockup.

Padgett said his officers were called to the lockup over the past few years to assist with controlling youths, some of whom are large and can be violent.

"They're not little old playground third-graders. These kids are big and strong. ... A lot of what we deal with, they're bigger than we are," he said.

'There may be others'

The Youth Services Division has praised the sheriff's office for removing The Wrap and agreeing to retrain detention center staff members on how to treat youths in their care.

In a recent report from the division, its internal investigator supported Gilkey's contention that the sheriff was unaware of how the device was being used inside the lockup. The investigator largely placed blame on Kristi Padgett for how The Wrap was being used.

The investigator also noted that no children interviewed on two separate occasions at the facility reported any neglect or abuse.

One of those interviews occurred in a group setting when a Youth Services Division staff member asked about neglect or abuse. Only five youths were interviewed individually, and only two were at the facility when The Wrap was in use. Of the two, one reported seeing the device used.

Also, the division's investigator has interviewed only one of the 20 youths that the agency determined had been put in The Wrap this year.

On Friday, Webb stressed that the Youth Services Division is not a law enforcement agency, and she said its employees would report any suspected maltreatment of youths to the child abuse hotline of the state police's Crimes Against Children Division.

She said state law prohibits her from disclosing whether any of the cases identified by the newspaper had been reported to the hotline.

Webb noted that Yell County has made "several improvements" at the detention center since September and that the Youth Services Division has seen a "marked shift in the culture."

"Many of the staffers involved in these latest incidents and with The Wrap are no longer employed at the facility," she said.

Webb said the division is awaiting the sheriff's decision on whether to request an independent investigation before deciding whether to conduct an additional review of the facility, interview more youths or scrutinize the more than 800 incident reports obtained by the newspaper.

So far, the division has not been given those reports by Yell County, she said.

"There may be others that we have concerns about, but at this moment I can't tell you yes or no because we have not seen them," Webb said.

MONDAY: Documents, surveillance video disagree on what happened to a 13-year-old at Yell County youth lockup.

SundayMonday on 12/21/2014

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