CHEYENNE, Wyo.—A Casper juvenile facility has been locking up youth in jail space that was deemed unsuitable for adults years ago and in ways that increase the risk of youths committing suicide or physically or sexually assaulting one another, according to a report obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
The report came out three months before an assault and other alleged incidents at the privately run Regional Juvenile Detention Facility prompted a Department of Family Services investigation.
“It is difficult to comprehend why the community permits children to be treated worse than adult criminals,” summed up the report by the National Partnership for Juvenile Services.
Overcrowding at the adult Natrona County jail prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to sue the county in 1992. The county opened a new adult jail in 1997 but then began using the old adult jail to lock up juveniles.
The Regional Juvenile Detention Facility is in the same building as the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office and houses youths from several Wyoming counties. The alleged incidents there happened about six weeks ago and included an assault between two boys and an instance of a group of boys who, for unknown or undisclosed reasons, gathered around two other boys who were naked.
Department officials said this week they’ve been trying to learn why staff of Cheyenne-based Frontier Correctional Systems, which runs the center, didn’t report the incidents right away.
Department officials also have been looking into whether lack of separation between bigger, more aggressive youth and smaller, less aggressive kids may have played a role in the incidents. The National Partnership report, dated Dec. 12, had warned about just that.
The report said the facility did not have a useful way of identifying and separating “predatory youth” from “vulnerable youth.”
The report also said that the facility’s multiple-occupancy cells made physical and sexual assault among youths more likely, and that the number of locked doors between staff and youth reduced safety. In addition, the report said youth in the facility on the third floor of the Sheriff’s Office building aren’t given time outdoors—it’s not possible.
“The reasons for declaring the third floor unacceptable for detention seem obvious,” the report said. “These factors are aggravated when detaining juveniles.”
The report said the juvenile facility is “sadly inadequate for … advanced practice care” and putting youths there amounts to “little more than warehousing” them.
It’s unclear what measures the county might have taken after the report’s release to improve safety at the facility. Sheriff Mark Benton and Undersheriff David Kinghorn did not return messages left Friday; neither did Frontier Correctional Systems CEO John Harrison.
But Natrona County commissioners said they were aware of the report—they requested it—and feel that it underscores the need to build a new juvenile facility.
“It’s indefensible, in my opinion, that we put kids in a facility that’s inadequate for adults. I can’t defend that. I wouldn’t want to,” said Commissioner Mark Keating, who provided the report to the AP.
“But what I do want to do is move the project forward as best I can, to have an appropriate facility, so that we end up with better adults.”
Keating said putting juveniles in the former adult jail was only supposed to be temporary.
Commissioners said they might be able to find the $11 million to $12 million to build a new juvenile facility after they finish building a new $26 million courthouse.
The National Partnership for Juvenile Services report was federally funded and co-authored by David Roush, who heads the Center for Research and Professional Development at Michigan State University. Roush said he evaluates such facilities a few times a year.
“We laid out what we thought were the preconditions for problems,” Roush said Friday. “So to the extent that there problems of that nature, I am disappointed but not surprised.”
Tony Lewis, director of the Wyoming Department of Family Services, said the report shows that the facility is “clearly inadequate” for juveniles—and just one example of the state’s problems with juvenile detention.
“This kind of report is indicative of where the state is on a more general level,” Lewis said. “There’s a need in every county to have short-term detention.”
Frontier Correctional Systems operates a Cheyenne juvenile detention and treatment facility, the Wardle Academy, in addition to the Casper facility. Both operations are being taken over by a Centennial, Colo.-based company, Cornerstone Programs Corp.
