IN DEPTH COVERAGE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been covering the Georgia juvenile justice system extensively, including breaking news of the U.S. Department of Justice survey that found the Paulding County Regional Youth Detention Center leads the nation in the percentage of juveniles reporting sexual contact with staff. The AJC also found a trail of lawsuits alleging abuse and neglect filed in other states against the private company that runs the Paulding facility. The AJC will continue following state reforms to fix its troubled youth detention facilities.
Cost savings of millions of dollars a year to the state will lead to the closing of the troubled 100-bed Paulding County Regional Youth Detention Center at the end of the year.
DJJ assistant commissioner Mark Sexton said Monday the decision to close the privately-run Paulding RYDC was based totally on economics, and had nothing to do with other issues concerning the 100-bed lock up for teenage boys accused of crimes. On Monday the Paulding RYDC held 45 teenage boys, including 14 already adjudicated and waiting for a space in a YDC.
Georgia had 655 in 21 RYDCs, pre trial juvenile jails on Monday, and 1,016 juveniles in its seven long-term YDCs, for offenders who have been convicted. Sexton said there are 1,900 beds in the system.
In June, the U.S. Department of Justice released the results of its first state-by-state survey of juvenile facilities that identified Paulding with the highest percentage of juveniles reporting they had had inappropriate sexual contact with staff, 32.1 percent. Three Georgia prisons for juveniles — youth development campuses in Dodge County, in Richmond County and in Sumter County — were also among the 13 U.S. facilities with the most instances of inmates being victimized sexually.
According to the survey required by the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, Georgia’s statewide rate was 15.8 and the nation’s was 9.1 percent.
Closing the Paulding center will save the state more than $3 million the rest of this budget year — and another $6 million a year overall, DJJ officials say, but will shift a portion of those costs to local coffers and the families of the teenage boys who would have been locked up there awaiting trial.
Local law enforcement officers will have to cover greater distances to get juvenile offenders to court and families will have to drive farther to visit loved-ones, to bring them needed medications, to make sure they have clothes appropriate for appearances before judges.
“It will be an additional burden on our sheriff,” said Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Peggy Walker.
Also, Walker added, the Paulding YDC will close the day before juvenile justice reforms take place that shorten the time for a required court appearance from 72 hours to 48 hours after arrest. The change also means officials will have to have more personnel to provide more frequent trips.
“Nobody knows what it’s going to cost,” Walker said.
If she had known the change was being considered, “I would have discouraged them,” Walker said. “I would have asked for time to budget.”
Florida-based Youth Service International will continue to operate the Crisp County RYDC, a jail for juveniles, and the Milan YDC, a youth prison in Telfair County.
“There is no intention to change that,” Sexton said.
YSI has had a state contract to staff and manage the Paulding RYDC in Dallas, almost 40 miles west of downtown Atlanta, since 2008. In total, Georgia pays YSI about $18 million a year to run three facilities.
Beginning Jan. 1, the juveniles who otherwise would be sent to the Paulding RYDC will instead be taken to facilities in Clayton or Floyd Counties. The Clayton RYDC will take accused juvenile offenders from Coweta and Heard Counties and the boys and girls in Paulding, Haralson, Douglas and Carroll Counties will be sent to the RYDC near Rome in Floyd County.
Sexton said some of the savings from closing the Paulding RYDC would be used to increase staffing at the RYDC in Clayton and it is possible some of the 68 YSI employees in Paulding would fill those positions though that was not guaranteed.
YSI has had issues in other states where it also operated juvenile facilities.
In Florida, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center brought a federal lawsuit in 2010 alleging that YSI staff at the Thompson Academy near Fort Lauderdale physically and sexually abused juveniles held there. The lawsuit was settled, and the terms of the agreement were sealed.
In a federal lawsuit was brought in South Dakota, a juvenile said he was sexually assault in 2006 by a correctional officer at the YSI-run Springfield Academy .
In March 2012, two Minnesota counties stopped sending juveniles to YSI-run Elmore Academy because of concerns about staff turnover, low-paid employees’ qualifications and fears that truants and runaways were being housed with dangerous juveniles. As far back as 2000, Minnesota authorities were addressing allegations of sexual abuse of a teenager.
”This is not a reaction to that,” Sexton said.
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