LITTLE ROCK -- A teenager in state custody was locked up Tuesday at a north Arkansas juvenile detention center even though the state had stopped sending youths there because of concerns about how the lockup used restraints and solitary lock down.
The 18-year-old was sent to the White River Juvenile Detention Center in Batesville late last week after a judge committed him to the custody of the state Youth Services Division.
Amy Webb, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said the youth's presence at the lockup was not a sign that the Youth Services Division has reversed its decision to stop housing youths there.
"Judges have the authority, and do routinely place youth at facilities with which DYS doesn't have signed agreements. When that happens, we work as quickly as possible to find an alternative placement," Webb said.
Webb said the agency is still waiting to see more progress at the White River lockup before it will resume sending its youths there.
County Judge Robert Griffin, whose office has authority over the White River Juvenile Detention Center in Independence County, said Tuesday that he believes most of the division's concerns about treatment at the lockup have been addressed over the past month.
"All methods of discipline have been under review. We're trying to make sure we're complying with reasonable uses of any disciplinary action," Griffin said. "Every staff member is undergoing retraining."
The White River lockup continues to house youths who have not been officially committed to state custody.
Until about a month ago, the White River lockup was one of five that the Youth Services Division relied on to house youths awaiting placement in state residential treatment centers.
Over the past six years, the division has paid about $3.5 million to house an average of 38 youths per month at the 52-bed lockup, payment invoices show.
But in late December, the White River lockup was one of two county-operated juvenile detention centers that the state cut off from housing state-custody youths.
On Dec. 23, the state announced that it would stop sending youths to the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center in response to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette investigation that found that staff members routinely punished youths, using a restraint chair, pepper spray or an immobilizing restraint device known as The Wrap.
About a week later, the division disclosed that its investigator found that staff members at the White River lockup were using disciplinary methods that violated state juvenile detention standards.
The investigator, April Hannah, reviewed two months of reports and found more than a dozen cases at the lockup in which staff members employed excessive measures in response to minor misbehavior.
According to parts of Hannah's notes, obtained under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, she found problems with the use of solitary lock down in 12 of 14 incidents she reviewed.
In two incidents referred to in Hannah's notes, she describes cases in which staff members punished youths by placing them in a restraint chair, a device that's supposed to be used only when youths are out of control or posing a threat of harm to themselves or others.
Hannah also found that youths were threatened with Tasers for misbehavior that didn't pose a threat to themselves or others.
Under a written agreement, the Youth Services Division allows the White River lockup to use Tasers even though it bars the use of the stun devices in state residential treatment centers and four other juvenile detention centers that house state-custody youths.
On Tuesday, Griffin said he and a former lockup administrator reviewed incident reports from the facility and found no reason to suspend or fire any employees.
Griffin said the incidents involving employees threatening youths with Tasers were "unacceptable" and had been addressed by allowing only supervisors to carry the devices.
The lockup's staff members are being retrained in response to Hannah's findings about arbitrary use of lock down or restraints. The lockup is also changing how it promotes good behavior, Griffin said.
NW News on 02/05/2015