So the plot thickens when it comes to this Wrap thing that some adults running the juvenile jails in Arkansas had been using on the kids. Turns out at least one juvenile lockup used the, uh, "restraining device" as punishment. Which is, and was, against the rules. And should be.
Thanks to the state's Freedom of Information Act--not to mention the news side of a certain paper you may be familiar with--the public now knows more about what's been going on behind closed doors in those lockups.
Back in October, word came (again, through Arkansas' Newspaper) that something called The Wrap was being used in some juvee jails to prevent kids from hurting themselves and others. You know, if a kid got too violent, it was best if he were handcuffed and put in this straitjacket thing with a duct-taped helmet over his head--for his own good, you know. Better that than for him to pitch himself off a stairway or repeatedly bang his head on a brick wall. Some in the teenage jail business made even more excuses for The Wrap.
But then this week came around, and yet another one of Chad Day's investigative reports showed up on the front page of the paper. Turns out, The Wrap was used for punishment, too--not just to protect kids from themselves--at Yell County's juvenile detention center in Danville.
The newspaper's investigation showed one kid was Wrapped because he threw wet socks. Wet socks! Another was Wrapped because he extended his middle finger to a staff member.
Once cuffed, Wrapped and blinded with the duct-taped helmet, the kids were often enough left that way for hours. The newspaper reviewed staff reports at the Danville lockup from January to September of this year and found The Wrap and something described as a restraining chair were used 52 times. And 40 of those times they were used to punish kids--for insults, yelling, banging on walls, etc.
In September, state honchos at the Youth Service Division told juvenile lockups to knock it off. The sheriff of Yell County, Bill Gilkey, had the device removed from the detention center in Danville. Which was a good start. If only a start. There needs to be a more thorough investigation.
Why? Because the detention center in Yell County passed inspections several years in a row after some outfit called the state Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee in the 15th Judicial District breezed through the place. The lockup wasn't cited for any problems with restraining the kids--because apparently state standards only require that the lockups have written policies that ban using restraints as punishment.
And if those policies aren't followed? That's got to be a job for another committee . . . .
Which raises a question: What other policies at juvenile lockups are in place--or at least written down somewhere--but not followed?
Once again, from the top: These kids didn't get put in juvee for coloring outside the lines. They put bars on the windows for a reason. But these kids--all of them--will get out. There is no life sentence in the juvenile criminal system.
The rest of us, if only for our own good, can't allow them to be poked or lashed--or Wrapped--like animals, and turned back into society later. Let's find out more about what has been going on behind those closed doors. And make sure that anybody who's broken the rules, or ignored written policies, finds another line of work.
Juvenile lockups are supposed to rehabilitate young people. Not make them worse.
Editorial on 11/21/2014