Juvenile jail's future uncertain

Manatee sheriff pulls out of program over pepper-spray ban

September 9, 2006
By JENNY LEE ALLEN
jenny.allen@heraldtribune.com

MANATEE COUNTY -- Every day at the Omega juvenile prison near Port Manatee, unarmed officers handle the worst of the worst young offenders: killers, thieves and rapists.

The officers have one weapon: the pepper spray on their belts.

But a new law passed after a teen was killed at a Panhandle boot camp this year bans pepper spray in juvenile facilities.

That provision didn't sit well with Sheriff Charlie Wells, and he is willing to drop his department's oversight of the state program as a result.

On Friday, the state Department of Juvenile Justice sent Wells a letter terminating the state's Omega contract with the Sheriff's Office.

"It's become an officer protection issue," Wells said.

The fate of the program itself is uncertain as a result of the terminated contract; Wells said DJJ could step in, bring in its own people and run the facility.

To run the facility, the Sheriff's Office received from the state $127 per day, per bed. The facility has 50 beds, which equates to about $2.3 million a year in lost county revenue.

Wells said the spray is the only thing officers can use before resorting to physical confrontation. They do not carry guns or batons.

"Usually it stops the incident," Wells said.

Without the spray, he said officers are "rather helpless and are pretty much bound to the elements.

"It's just a matter of principle," Wells said. "It's kind of like hanging my deputies out to dry, and I can't do that."

This marks the second closing of a juvenile facility in Manatee County this year.

Lawmakers closed the state's five juvenile boot camps this spring after guards at a Panama City camp beat up 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who later died.

The law allowed sheriffs to replace their camps with a softer program called STAR.

Most sheriffs -- including Wells -- declined. They said the state did not provide enough money to run the new program.

As happened with the boot camps, the juveniles at Omega will be transferred to other facilities.

DJJ spokeswoman Tara Collins said there are three other maximum-risk facilities similar to Omega for male juveniles in the state.

The 28 deputies at Omega, which opened in October 1995, will be reassigned.

Since January 2003, pepper spray has been used 34 times at Omega, about nine times a year on average, said sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow.

"It's been extremely helpful," Bristow said.

The sheriff's contract officially expires Oct. 7.

Wells said he thinks legislators, in response to the teen's death in the Panama City boot camp, passed "sweeping reforms" and may have inadvertently overreached.

"It's disappointing. It's a big loss for the state," he said. Wells said he hopes the Legislature will revisit the issue.

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