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EGACY Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • Aug. 24, 2016
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Richmond & Hampton Roads
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Half of juvenile centers use isolation to control
A West Virginia mother whose 16-year-old son was struggling with ADHD wanted to get him services but wasn’t sure what to do. The assistant principal at her son’s school suggested she file an incorrigibility petition — a status offense — against her son, whom we’ll call John, so he would be eligible for those services. But John didn’t get any kind of help after his mother filed the petition. Instead, he was put on probation, and then in secure detention, and eventually on psychotropic medication. After being put on the new medication, John began to get into fights with other juveniles and was eventually placed in isolation for several months in secure detention. John’s mother just wanted to get him help — not get him involved with the juvenile justice system. But according to Mishi Faruqee, the national field director of the Youth First Initiative who recounted John’s story, this situation is all too common. All too often, when young people either spray graffiti or defy authority
or skip school, they don’t receive help, such as counseling or academic services, but fall deeper and deeper into the juvenile justice system. It is also fairly common for staff to use isolation as a form of control, as staff likely did with John by placing him in isolation. Almost half of training schools and juvenile facilities use isolation to control the behavior of teens, and 62 percent of training schools use physical restraints, according to data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that was released last week. The Obama administration has recently brought more attention to the issue of isolation in juvenile facilities, banning federal prisons from keeping juveniles in solitary confinement. Though this ban only affects a relatively small number of juveniles being held in detention, advocates say it sends a strong message opposing isolation. But there is still a lot of work to do. “It can be a very traumatic experience and can have lifelong
consequences.” Isolation may seem insignificant to a person who hasn’t experienced it, but putting someone in a room for hours without anything to do — without so much as a magazine — can be a traumatic experience, especially for juveniles. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry put out a statement in 2012 asserting that measures such as solitary confinement of juveniles could be responsible for anxiety, depression, and even psychosis — and that isolation puts them in even more risk because their minds are still developing. “The experience is traumatic and depressing and can have an enormous impact on kids’ mental health,” said Mark Soler, executive director for the Center for Children’s Law and Policy. “And of course children have a different sense of time than adults do. They perceive time as being longer because they don’t have the experience of adults, so it can be a very traumatic
experience and can have lifelong consequences.” Why staff isolate youth Corrections officers don’t usually isolate juveniles as a whim, Soler said. In most cases, he said officers truly believe that isolation is the best tool they have to control a facility and keep youth— and themselves — safe. They may believe there is no other way to keep juveniles from escalating a fight. “I don’t doubt the sincerity of the staff. I believe the staff really think they are going to be less safe if they can’t lock kids up in their rooms,” Soler said. “Some staff are just being resistant. But I think the great majority of staff are legitimately concerned about their ability to keep things under control at the facility and their own safety.” For instance, LGBTQ kids are often put into isolation because staff argue that separating them from other juveniles is for their own protection.
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