The Department of Juvenile Justice is pushing legislation that would let the agency keep secret any reports of violence in their lockups, as well as allegations of wrongdoing or abuse by the staff.
Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, who is the sponsor of a sweeping juvenile justice reform bill that the Senate passed Thursday, said he was concerned about why DJJ wants to “limit obtaining information about abuse going on inside a facility that needs to be known.”
DJJ Commissioner Avery Niles did not respond to a request for comment and his spokesman said Niles would not comment on the bill while it is pending. “It is premature for the commissioner to provide the agency’s position on SB 69,” DJJ spokesman Jim Shuler said in an email.
Agency officials said during a House committee meeting on Thursday, however, that the department was advocating for the bill out of concern that kids could be hurt if others in the state’s lockups learned they had provided information to authorities. The Senate has already passed it.
Kirsten Widner of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center said a “careful balance needs to be struck between protection (of juveniles in custody) and accountability” to the public, which has a right to know what is happening inside the state’s seven long-term facilities, which are like adult prisons, and 20 short-term lockups, or jails for teenagers.
The bill prohibits allowing the public access to reports of disturbances or allegations of threats, abuse or wrongdoing. The only exception would be if the juvenile, whose name is already withheld in legal proceedings and public records, or the “representative of such child” gives written permission to disclose information.
The bill says the commissioner will make a report once a year “summarizing the number of reports of abuse or wrongdoing received and the general nature of such reports.”
In recent years, files on closed investigations of riots and other disturbances have detailed the events and accounts by staff as well as juveniles, but the names of the teenagers were blacked out along with any other information that would identify them, such as their ages.
For example, a 207-page report on a riot at the DeKalb Regional Youth Detention Center last summer said staff knew a disturbance was planned but did not share that information. Three officers and 10 juveniles were injured in that Aug. 11 disturbance. Such a report would not be released to the public under Senate Bill 69.
Lawmakers on Thursday voted to reform the juvenile justice system by diverting low-level offenders and kids accused of “crimes” such as running away or being unruly away from facilities where they are locked up with dangerous juvenile offenders.
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