Arkansas juvenile lockup gets new operator

Company plans ‘softer’ approach

The state has selected a new private contractor to run the often-troubled lockup that houses the state's most serious juvenile offenders.

The Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center near Alexander has been rocked by a series of plights over the past 15 years that attracted federal intervention and caused ripples throughout the state's juvenile-justice system. A revolving door of leadership within the Youth Services Division -- 11 different directors in the past two decades -- has coincided with the lockup's struggles.

Rite of Passage, a Nevada-based services provider, was awarded the $10.4 million-a-year contract after officials selected its bid over the one submitted by the lockup's current operator, Florida-based G4S. The Rite of Passage bid was $450,000 higher per year than the cost in the bid submitted by G4S.

Given the higher cost, it isn't clear why Rite of Passage was selected. Officials with the Department of Human Services, which oversees the lockup, and the Office of State Procurement, which conducts bidding, declined to comment on the bidding process until legislators formally review the contract later this month.

Rite of Passage, which runs 30 similar facilities in 14 states, is to take control of the Arkansas facility Aug. 1.

G4S has operated the center since 2007 at an annual cost of about $10 million. The company has been entangled in the lockup's problems, but it also has been credited for overseeing improvements that helped free the facility from federal court supervision in 2012.

Mike Cantrell, executive director of the southeast region for Rite of Passage, said his company is well aware of the lockup's troubled past.

"We did our homework, and we understand the struggles and challenges at this facility in the past," he said. "We're excited to be here and to transform a harder facility into a softer facility without sacrificing public safety. We believe we fit that bill."

Publicized troubles at the youth lockup began in 2003 after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation uncovered substandard conditions that violated the constitutional rights of the children at the lockup.

The facility was not only unsafe, according to the department, it denied youthful offenders access to education and forced their participation in religious activities.

The Justice Department's investigation kick-started 10 years of federal court supervision at the compound.

Even under federal supervision, issues persisted.

In 2007, the Youth Services Division, part of the state Human Services Department, switched contractors after an internal investigation discovered that lockup employees wrongfully injected youths with anti-psychotic medications to control their behavior.

G4S Youth Services took over the facility's operation from Cornell Cos. Inc. after the internal investigation.

Conditions at the lockup improved under G4S management over the next seven years. Federal oversight of the facility ended in 2012.

Problems resurfaced in January 2014 after it came to light that the Youth Services Division was illegally taking DNA samples from young inmates who had committed felonies. State law required that genetic material be taken only from youths who committed certain violent crimes, like rape and murder.

In total, the agency unlawfully collected more than 800 DNA samples.

Several months after the collection of the improper DNA samples was made public, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette -- using records obtained under a state Freedom of Information Act request --discovered a 98 percent uptick in assaults at the lockup in 2013.

About the same time, three lockup employees were fired and another abruptly resigned after accusations of physical assaults on youths confined there.

The series of events led to reviews by a federally backed nonprofit, Disability Rights Center of Arkansas, and a juvenile-justice consultant at the request of G4S.

The reports offered differing conclusions about the facility. The Disability Rights Center criticized the consultant's more-favorable report as biased. The consultant, Darryl Olsen of Florida, previously had worked with G4S.

The Disability Rights Center of Arkansas had written a much harsher report, in which it included testimony from youths who said staff members had bribed children with candy to assault other youths at the lockup.

The Youth Services Division and G4S, however, didn't find evidence of such bribery. The Disability Rights Center of Arkansas refused to disclose the names of the youths involved because it did not want to violate the youths' trust. So, that testimony couldn't be verified by the state.

In 2014, violent acts at the lockup reached a six-year high, according to a Democrat-Gazette report. That year, 832 violent acts were reported, a 25 percent increase from the 664 reported in 2013.

A G4S spokesman did not return requests for comment for this article.

Rite of Passage also has encountered problems at facilities it operates that are similar to the one in Saline County.

In January, Texas Rangers arrested a Rite of Passage counselor who worked at a juvenile detention facility near Fort Worth on accusations that she had sexual contact with a youthful offender after he was released from the facility. Rite of Passage quickly fired the employee.

Last year, a riot broke out at a Rite of Passage facility in Nevada. The riot caused a fire during which 10 youths escaped.

In 2014, a Rite of Passage teacher at a Colorado juvenile-offender center was charged with three felonies stemming from a sexual relationship with an offender at the facility. The employee also, purportedly, provided several illegal drugs to a 20-year-old at the lockup.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find an organization that hasn't run into problems dealing with this population," Cantrell said, adding that Rite of Passage attempts to be transparent and accountable when problems arise.

"Incidents are going to happen because they are inherent with this population. It's all about how you respond."

For youth advocates, the issues reach beyond the companies running large-scale juvenile-detention centers. The problem lies with the facilities themselves, said Sam Kauffman, a staff attorney at the Disability Rights Center of Arkansas.

"A lot of kids simply don't belong there," he said. "It's an open-ended question with Rite of Passage because they're new to Arkansas, but the very nature of these institutions and the way they've been run historically does not give us confidence."

Kauffman insisted that the $450,000 higher cost in the Rite of Passage contract would have been better spent funding community-based treatment programs.

Rite of Passage plans to move toward "softer" treatment, Cantrell said. The facility should feel more like a school and less like a jail, he said.

Offenders' schedules should be full every hour of the day with academics, athletics, arts and community service, he said.

A busy schedule, Cantrell said, prevents the youths from sitting idle and talking among themselves, which can often lead to problems.

A Rite of Passage operation in Maryland has been heralded as a model facility by attorneys, families and lawmakers in a state where the mostly state-run juvenile-justice system has encountered troubling shortcomings. That facility offers offenders an experience similar to that of a traditional boarding school.

The organization plans to bring many of those same programs to Arkansas starting Aug. 1.

"We're not interested in running jailhouses. We're interested in running schoolhouses," Cantrell said.

A Section on 07/08/2016

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