LITTLE ROCK — The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that after nearly 10 years of federal court supervision, conditions at a oncetroubled state youth facility have improved so much that monitoring is no longer necessary.
The Justice Department has supervised the facility now known as the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center since 2003 as part of a settlement agreement with the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ Youth Services Division.
The agreement required the Youth Services Division to address the findings of a federal investigation that found shortcomings in the facility’s fire-safety, suicideprevention, and religion policies, and education and special-education services.
In a joint motion filed late Tuesday, attorneys for the Justice Department and the Department of Human Services wrote that the state has “complied with all of the substantive requirements of the [court] entered settlement. Accordingly, dismissal is warranted.”
In a statement released shortly after the motion’s filing, Youth Services Division Director Ron Angel said his staff has made numerous changes to address the problems identified at the youth facility in Saline County near Alexander that houses the state’s worst youthful offenders.
“The center and the services offered there have improved dramatically over the last several years,” Angel said in the statement. “There are fewer youth, a new contractor running the program, a new school and enhanced educational and behavioral health services.”
In the statement, Human Services Director John Selig praised Angel’s work at the center since his hiring in 2007.
“Ron was hired for his strong leadership skills, and he didn’t shy away from any task,” Selig said. “He analyzed all the issues and hired the right people to fix them.”
The youth facility’s condition now stands in stark contrast to what federal investigators and consultants encountered a decade ago, when they found the facility unsafe and lacking in adequate mental-health and educational services for the 143 youths housed there, Human Services Department officials said.
In March 2003, the Justice Department filed a complaint in federal court asking U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright to impose federal supervision on the state and force it to improve conditions that violated the constitutional rights of the youths confined at the center.
That month, the Justice Department and the Human Services Department entered into an 18-page settlement agreement that required the state to correct the violations by meeting more than 50 standards. The state also was required to file status reports about twice a year regarding compliance with the agreement.
Amy Webb, spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said the state complied with the agreement’s reporting requirements up until Angel was notified of the Justice Department’s decision this week.
Over the time of the agreement, Webb said some fixes came sooner than others.
“They resolved fire safety issues, religious issues and the suicide prevention issues fairly quickly. It took a longer time, obviously, to address the educational issues and mental-health service issues,” she said.
In 2007, the Youth Services Division changed contractors at the facility, hiring G4S Youth Services of Florida to operate the center.
The change came after an internal investigation found that employees of its previous contractor, Cornell Cos. Inc., were wrongfully injecting youths with anti-psychotic medications to control their behavior. The Youth Services Division subsequently fired Cornell.
Since then, Angel’s staff and G4S Youth Services have made several changes, mostly in improving education, mental-health services and suicide prevention, Webb said.
“It took us the time to find the right teachers. We built new facilities as part of this process,” she said.
In the past few years, the Youth Services Division used part of about $17 million from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to build a 21,500-square-foot education building with 15 classrooms, a library and spaces for vocational training.
The facility also now has the “adequate” number of special-education teachers, and all “teachers are licensed in their subject area and maintain a ‘highly qualified’ status,” according to a Department of Human Services news release.
The center is evaluated by the state Department of Education and can award diplomas, which the center couldn’t do in 2003. The center also now can keep students’ educational records updated by accessing state databases, according to the release.
In terms of mental health, the center now has a full-time psychologist on staff and has contracted with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to provide a psychiatrist. Staff members also must train annually in suicide prevention.
Webb said the Youth Services Division also worked on improving the facility beyond what was required under the federal court agreement.
The division reduced the capacity at the facility to 100. The youths housed there, most of whom have committed felony offenses, live in a dormitory.
“There had been complaints over the years that there were too many kids there ... We wanted those kids with lesser offenses to be able to be treated in the communities or closer to home,” she said.
In regard to the settlement agreement, the matter now goes before Wright, who will decide whether to grant the joint motion and dismiss the case.
Webb said the agency expects the judge’s ruling soon.
“I don’t know the time frame, but we do expect the judge to make a decision fairly soon considering that it was both [the Youth Services Division] and the Department of Justice asking to be released,” she said.
“It wasn’t just us asking for it. It was the Department of Justice saying, ‘Yes, they should be released.’”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/21/2012