Assaults known at youth lockup

Emails show who knew when

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Top officials in the state Division of Youth Services were aware of "numerous" allegations of staff members assaulting youths at Arkansas' largest juvenile lockup at least four weeks before the division ordered a facility-wide review, internal emails show.

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Division leaders and contractor G4S Youth Services had discussions "at the highest levels" about "numerous staff on client assaults at the hands of G4S employees" as well as other safety concerns at the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center, according to an email dated May 20.

The agency didn't order G4S to come up with a facility-wide review and "plan of action" to address and reduce the number of staff-on-youth assault allegations until last week.

The call for the plan came as the division publicly disclosed that a G4S staff member had been accused of physically assaulting a youth over the weekend of June 14-15. The assault allegation was at least the third involving a staff member made this year at the Alexander lockup.

In an interview Friday, Amy Webb, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said the Youth Services Division's leaders responded to allegations of assault each time they came up.

"It's not like we're suddenly concerned about it. We're concerned about them every time we see them, and we're responsive every time we see them," Webb said. "I think what the emails refer to is, 'Hey, look at this. We really need to talk about this more broadly than just looking at individual cases.'"

Webb said Youth Services Division's staff members have had several "face-to-face" meetings over the past few months about concerns involving G4S. And Human Services Department Deputy Director Keesa Smith is looking into whether the Youth Services Division responded quickly enough to safety concerns at the facility, Webb said.

Smith supervises the Youth Services Division, which has been led for nearly a year by Director Tracy Steele.

"We want to make sure that our staff have responded appropriately ... in terms of what the overall response was inside the division. We're looking at that to determine whether it was what we expect," Webb said.

A spokesman for G4S didn't return messages left by phone and email Friday.

The internal reviews by the Youth Services Division come as the nonprofit Disability Rights Center of Arkansas is investigating the facility to determine whether the youths housed there are safe and being treated with dignity and respect. The group has authority under federal law to investigate facilities that house people with disabilities.

That includes the Alexander facility, which houses about 100 of the state's most violent and behaviorally troubled youths, some of whom require intensive mental health care. The facility also handles intake for nearly all of the state's juvenile delinquents.

Also last week, the division released more detailed information on staff-on-youth allegations lodged between 2009 and 2013, which give more insight into why reported assaults nearly doubled at the lockup last year.

The agency also released data showing that few allegations of staff members physically abusing youths at the lockup have been determined to be true during those five years.

The division's definition of assault is much broader than what is considered physical abuse.

Assaults can be verbal or physical, don't have to cause a visible injury and can include various types of altercations. A youth shoving someone could be included in the assault figures along with an altercation that caused serious bodily harm.

A physical abuse always involves an allegation of bodily contact that "leaves a mark," agency officials say.

THE EMAILS

Emails discussing the response of the Youth Services Division were among those obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under the state Freedom of Information Act.

The emails show that on May 20, Youth Services Division Assistant Director Herman Williams, who oversees the agency's residential facilities, wrote Steele about a "G4S Youth Injury Investigation Update."

"As you are very much aware, there continue to be numerous staff on client assaults at the hands of G4S employees," Williams wrote. "You and I have discuss[ed] many times possible corrective actions and have met with the provider at the highest levels on these and other sensitive matters of operations and child safety concerns."

The emails released to the newspaper don't include a response from Steele. Williams forwarded the email to Smith on June 11.

Two days later, Steele wrote Williams after learning that the Disability Rights Center of Arkansas planned an unannounced visit at the lockup, which is sometimes referred to as "AJATC."

"I will say once again as I have said many times before I need you to have a constant daily presence at AJATC. We do not know when the [Disability Rights Center] or any group is going to visit our campus," Steele wrote, noting that he also wanted an update on whether G4S was abiding by new division policies regarding taking DNA samples from youths.

Williams responded about half an hour later.

"It's worth mentioning for the record, you have daily and in real time reports and requests from me on multiple incidents and investigations to include reports of assaults, of abuse both while I have been at AJATC, off work and at Central Office. To date, you've not responded via email nor in Executive meetings with me to discuss system-wide review and corrective actions from your position," Williams wrote back.

Williams then requested a meeting with Smith to discuss the "many" requests for "advisement and follow up."

On Friday, Webb confirmed that the meeting took place.

Webb said Smith was looking into the concerns voiced by Williams, who has been at the division for about six months. Steele, who was hired last July, is Williams' supervisor.

A phone message left Friday afternoon for Williams wasn't returned. He also didn't respond to an email request for comment.

Steele responded to the newspaper via email and wrote that he believes he's been responsive to his staff's concerns about the Alexander lockup.

"It is my goal that staff feel their concerns are a priority for me. When they don't, I work to address that and have done so in this situation," he wrote.

Steele said he and his staff weekly review all "incidents, with great attention to the major incidents."

Steele said his first priority is determining what is causing allegations of assaults and physical abuses at the lockup.

"First we need to determine what the root cause is for the increase in numbers," he wrote. "Once we have that we'll be better able to determine what more should have and what needs to be done to ensure the facility is moving forward."

THE NUMBERS

One of the main focuses of the Youth Services Division's review is determining what caused an increase in assaults reported at the Alexander lockup. Assaults reported at the facility rose 98 percent from 165 in 2012 to 327 in 2013.

According to the latest data released last week, the division's records show that the reported assaults at the lockup in 2012 and 2013 came at the hands of youths housed there -- either youth-on-staff or youth-on-youth assaults.

The division has been looking into the possible explanations for the increase. And Steele has said he believes one cause of the increase is that the facility is handling more violent and disruptive youths now than in past years.

Child advocates and juvenile justice researchers have said they believe the increase in assaults is more the result of putting so many youths in large institutionalized settings.

Pat Arthur, a consultant who has studied Arkansas' juvenile justice system for years, said she believes large facilities "by nature" expose youth to a higher risk of assault and self harm.

"It's certainly a red flag to see youth-on-youth assaults go up. It's the adults' responsibility to keep the kids safe. In fact, they have a constitutional responsibility to keep the kids safe," Arthur said.

Arthur has said she believes large institutional facilities such as Alexander should be phased out as other states have done. In its place, Arthur said, the state should work to reserve lockups for children who "are substantially a risk to public safety," implement programs that have smaller populations closer to their homes and try to keep more low- and medium-risk children out of state custody entirely.

On Friday, Steele said he's asked G4S to examine several potential causes of the increase, including whether the facility is adequately staffed to handle the number of youths housed there.

"Staff, no doubt, have a difficult job, and one that not all people could do, but I also want to make it clear that staff on client incidents will not be tolerated, and that we expect G4S to ensure staff and youth have a safe living or work environment," Steele wrote.

The data also show that there were 50 allegations of staff members physically abusing a youth at the facility between 2009 and 2013.

But only two of the physical abuse allegations were determined to be true by the division's internal affairs investigators.

One of the reported abuses occurred in 2009 and resulted in an employee's firing. The other occurred in 2012. The data didn't indicate an outcome for any employees involved.

The data include allegations of "staff-on-client" physical abuses, assaults, fights and sexual abuses reported to the Youth Services Division between 2009 and 2013.

The agency reported no allegations of employee-involved fights at the lockup. It reported eight allegations of sexual assault lodged against staff members. All of those allegations were determined to be "unfounded" by internal affairs investigators.

Agency officials cautioned that the data released to the newspaper only show how many of the allegations were internally determined to be "founded or unfounded."

The data do not indicate whether the allegations were accepted by the Arkansas State Police's child abuse hotline or "how many were determined true legally as it related to child maltreatment," Webb said, referring to the state Child Maltreatment Central Registry, which is a list of all people who have been determined to have abused or neglected a child.

The agency did not release staff-on-youth allegations data for the first part of 2014. But it has disclosed at least three allegations this year of staff members assaulting youths at the lockup.

The allegations include an altercation that occurred over the weekend of June 14-15 during which a youth suffered injuries that an agency spokesman described as "superficial."

An employee involved in the altercation resigned before he could be fired. Another employee, who was fired, has said she wasn't involved in any physical assault of the youth.

The fired employee, Pamela Kirklin, said she was told by G4S that she was fired because of a verbal "power struggle" with the youth following the physical altercation. Kirklin disputes that she did anything improper.

Webb said she couldn't confirm that Kirklin was the fired employee.

Webb said she could say that G4S' human resources policies and the Youth Services Division's policies are different regarding interactions with youths, and that the employee's "involvement fit the broad definition we have of assault."

Webb said she didn't know when the Youth Services Division expected the facility-wide review of the Alexander lockup to be complete.

Steele has said he's working to give his division more oversight powers in the next contract to operate the Alexander lockup. The current contract with G4S, under which the company has been paid about $10 million per year, expires next year.

SundayMonday on 06/22/2014