Correction: Although a Bryant juvenile detention center didn’t apply for a federal grant specifically related to the findings of a survey of sexual victimization, the state Department of Human Services and its Division of Youth Services staff have added searches for Prison Rape Elimination Act-related grants to their routine searches for grants, a department spokesman said Wednesday. This article indicated the center would not apply for any grants.
Sexual abuse of inmates in youth-detention facilities has decreased nationwide over the past four years, but not at the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center in Bryant, according to a survey from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The survey of inmates, mandated by federal law, ranks the Bryant center sixth on a list of youth lockups with the highest rates of sexual victimization, which is defined as any unwanted sexual activity between center residents and all sexual activity between youths and center staff members.
The survey also shows that the Bryant center’s reported incidence of sexualvictimization rose from 10.7 percent of inmates in a 2008-09 survey to 23.2 percent in the recently released survey, conducted in early 2012.
The national average fell from 12.1 percent in the earlier survey to 9.5 percent in the new report.
Center administrators said the survey results paint an inaccurate picture of the facility.
“The survey itself doesn’t support our reports,” said facility administrator Todd Speight. “None of the [six staff-on-youth] allegations [reported to us] were substantiated.” Just two of seven reports made to facilitators of youth-on-youth sexual incidents were substantiated, he added.
“The program takes every survey seriously; however, the numbers differentiate between the survey and the substantiated findings we have here. We cannot account for what a resident says in a confidential survey,” said Speight.
Formerly known as the Alexander Youth Services Center, the facility at 1501 Woody Drive in Bryant houses some of Arkansas’ “most behaviorally troubled and violent youth,” according to the state Youth Services Division’s website. The name was changed in July 2007.
The center has a long history of trouble, which began in 2003 and included the drugging of inmates by staff members and several suicides.
The center was released last year from nearly a decade of federal court supervision after the U.S. Justice Department deemed the facility had improved.
TheYouth Services Division hired Georgia-based G4S Youth Services LLC to operate the center in January 2007.
Sexual abuse wasn’t one of the problems publicly reported in the past, but according to the National Survey of Youth in Custody-2 report released June 6, inappropriate sexual contact is on the rise within the facility.
Of the 70 youths who were questioned at the center last year, 16 reported being sexually victimized by another inmate and/or staff member. Half of those said the sexual contact involved another inmate; six of those eight said the contact was not consensual. About 10 inmates said the sexual contact involved a staff member, two of whom said the contact was forceful.
Four years ago, six of the center’s 57 inmates who completed the same survey reported sexual victimization. Five said it involved a staff member and two said that contact was forced or coerced.
Assistant Facility Administrator Richard Barnett noted that inappropriate contact includes a wide range of activity, from singing vulgar lyrics to touching.
What inmates report can’t always be believed, said Steve Jones, deputy director of thestate Department of Human Services.
“It’s not unusual for accusations to be made; it is highly unusual for them to be substantiated in the system,” he said.
“As a result of seeing the survey, we had some internal meetings. We’ve taken an extra look to see if we missed something, and it’s just not there,” Jones said.
“If [the survey’s findings are] true, that is a serious concern for us. We don’t have any evidence to support that at this time,” he said.
Regardless, Youth Services Division plans to contact groups that helped the center recover from its problems in the past to help review the survey results and determine if the center needs to take any action, said Human Services Department spokesman Amy Webb.
The division also will create a handbook for inmates that will inform them of their rights so they will have easily accessible information if a situation arises that should be reported.
“The bottom line is we feel comfortable with our process for addressing reported cases, but we want to make sure we do what we can to ensure youth feel comfortable reporting these types of allegations,” Webb said.
The 13 facilities in the survey that were determined to have a higher risk of sexual victimization, including the Bryant center, are given priority when it comes to receiving up to $250,000 through a federal grant. The grant aims to help train staff members and bring the facilities into compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
But the Bryant center won’t be applying for any grants, said Barnett, the assistant administrator.
He said the staff is welltrained already. The center was found to be in 100 percent compliance with requirements in the Prison Rape Elimination Act when it was reaccredited in 2011, he said. That accreditation lasts through 2014.
Facility employees must complete 120 hours of training within their first year, two weeks of which are completed before they begin work. During the two-week orientation, staff members are trained on identifyingred-flag situations, effective intervention and incident reporting, and they practice by role-playing, Barnett said.
The facility - which admits male and female youths ages 14 to 21 and holds them for six to 18 months - wasn’t the only Arkansas center surveyed. Inmates of nine other youth lockups in the state were questioned, and the surveyors reported sexual victimization rates at five of those facilities.
The centers and their rates of sexual victimization, according to the survey, were: Colt Juvenile Treatment Center, 19 percent; Dermott Juvenile Correction Facility, 12.1 percent; Lewisville Juvenile Treatment Center, 9.1 percent; Harrisburg Juvenile Treatment Center, 7.7 percent; Mansfield Juvenile Treatment Center, 5.3 percent. The Dermott center was the only one included in the previous survey and its rate declined.
The survey finding that sexual victimization rose in the Bryant center runs counter to another nationwide finding: The chance of an inmate being a victim of sexual abuse declines at smallerfacilities. The Bryant facility has decreased its beds from 143 to 100 since 2008, yet its victimization rate shot up in the survey.
However, it is still one of the largest such detention centers in the state and the only privately run state youth lockup that operates for profit. That also goes against the national findings.
Overall, state-owned and state-operated facilities had a higher rate of staff sexual misconduct than did locally or privately operated centers.
“It’s a red flag that people need to be mindful of,” said Paul Kelly, senior policy analyst with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a nonprofit that has worked with the Bryant center in the past. “It’s important, at least from our perspective, to make sure people recognize that this sort of thing is inherent in those types of institutional settings.
“Even if all this other stuff didn’t happen, these large detention centers don’t improve the chances of kids doing better … I am not faulting them; I’m just saying that, again, this is inherent in these large institutions.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/06/2013