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Juvenile facilities rated among
state's worst
June 9, 2007
By Deidre Conner
Audits show rotting boards and
safety problems are among the issues in Northeast Florida.
Northeast Florida facilities for
juvenile offenders are rife with unacceptable problems, from
crumbling buildings to shoddy treatment, according to state audits
putting them among the worst in Florida. sponsored links Refinance
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Seven of the region's eight centers
are minimal or failing, the audits show. The one exception, Hastings
Youth Academy in St. Johns County, hasn't had a thorough state
review since 2005.
Statewide, only a quarter of
residential programs were ranked as minimal or failing in 2006.
Among the common problems found at
the teen prisons here were moldy and crumbling buildings, falsified
records and inadequate treatment plans. The state also found centers
at which teachers fear for their safety, where youth were improperly
punished after an alleged institution-wide insurrection, and where
pregnant girls didn't get prenatal care.
When state Department of Juvenile
Justice's Bureau of Quality Assurance auditors visited the Duval
Halfway House, known in the past as the Duval Juvenile Residential
Facility, they called the condition of the bedrooms and bathrooms
"deplorable." They found rotting boards, holes in the wall and
reports of rats on the property.
The 28 youths at the halfway house
are kept in a former motel on Philips Highway. According to the
review, the buildings were 80 years old and either need major
renovation or should be torn down completely.
Those findings weren't anything
new, though. Despite requesting money to fix the facility, its
superintendent and the regional officials have been rebuffed year
after year, reviewers wrote.
It's the same at the Nassau
Juvenile Residential Facility in Fernandina Beach, where 37 fire
violations were found. The building is "structurally challenged
inside and out," the audit said, and the non-profit foundation
running it has no financial means to fix it.
The state itself budgeted $1
million for such capital projects statewide this year.
A facility on Lannie Road, known as
the Tiger Serious Habitual Offender Program, failed the state review
this spring. The program, which houses 24 high-risk males, is under
investigation because a staff member was accused of giving
marijuana, Ecstasy and Xanax to seven youths. According to the
audit, it has an ongoing problem with youths having contraband.
During the past year, auditors said, there have been numerous
reports of excessive or unnecessary force, improper staff conduct
and youths getting violent with one another and with the staff.
Depending on their crime, young
offenders can land at one of about 100 residential programs
scattered throughout the state. The state spent $291 million for the
programs in fiscal year 2005-06.
It's hard to know how some, like
the Hastings Youth Academy, are doing because they haven't been
checked in years. That's because a good rating ensured a reprieve
from audits. The number of such programs tripled from 1997 to 2005,
according to a Bureau of Quality Assurance report, which at the time
heralded the news as a good thing.
This year, all the department's
facilities will be audited, regardless of scores.
Auditors also won't be giving them
advance notice like before.
"They wanted to make sure they got
an accurate assessment," said Kimberly Griffin, a spokeswoman for
the department.
Walter McNeil is the Department of
Juvenile Justice's third secretary in three years and the second
since 2004 to take over after a string of abuse scandals.
Amanda Ostrander, a spokeswoman for
the advocacy group Children's Campaign, said it's encouraging to see
that McNeil changed the department's mission to include caring for
troubled youth. Previously, she said, it simply sought only to
protect public safety.
Although McNeil has taken some
steps toward reform since being appointed in January, Ostrander
said, funding for the department has been cut.
"Providers are in crisis, and
prices keep going up," she said. "It almost seems that those issues
continue not to be a priority for the Legislature."
As early as December 2003, the
Legislature's investigative branch slammed Juvenile Justice for the
reviews. It said the department gave acceptable ratings to places
with clear problems, such as the Florida Institute for Girls in West
Palm Beach, where a grand jury investigated alleged sexual and
physical abuse.
The Bay County Boot Camp, where
seven guards and a nurse were charged with aggravated manslaughter
in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson in January 2006,
earned a "commendable" rating in its last audit in 2004. The camp
has since closed.
If the scores issued this spring of
a half-dozen local programs are any indication, facilities may be
judged more stringently than in the past.
That's a good thing, said Michael
O'Loughlin, who directs alternative programs for the St. Johns
County school system. The district sends teachers to the Hastings
Youth Academy, where the average stay is six months to a year, as
well as the St. Johns Juvenile Correctional Facility, a longer-term
residential facility for high-risk sex offenders.
The educational programs are
audited every year, he said, and the institutions should be, too.
"I think it's important we have a
good idea of what's going on inside these facilities," O'Loughlin
said. "It's a population that's otherwise easily written off."
deirdre.conner@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4504
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