Pubdate: Fri, 17 Dec 1999
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 1999 by The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.
Contact:  http://www.sunspot.net/
Forum: http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/ultbb/Ultimate.cgi?actionintro
Author: Todd Richissin And Kate Shatzkin
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n1313/a01.html

GOVERNOR'S TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS ASSAULTS AT 3 STATE FACILITIES;

Incidents Date To 1996

A final report released yesterday by a governor's task force provides fresh
accounts of assaults on teens at three Maryland boot camps, including a
doctor's opinion that hemorrhaging suffered by one delinquent abused by
guards was the worst she had ever seen.

Details of the assaults, some of which occurred as recently as this month,
were released as Gov. Parris N. Glendening and Lieutenant Gov. Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend worked to appoint members for a second task force to
investigate after-care programs for juvenile delinquents on probation.

Once released from confinement, delinquents in Maryland often skip drug
rehabilitation and other programs with no consequences from the state
Department of Juvenile Justice.

"The after-care component to any treatment is critical," said Bart Lubow, a
senior associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, which works
to improve the lives of disadvantaged children and has studied Maryland's
largest juvenile detention center. "Maryland has got to wake up to the
importance of this."

The report released yesterday, from a task force chaired by former state
prisons chief Bishop L. Robinson, describes in detail abuses that led to
the ouster Wednesday of the juvenile justice secretary and four of his aides.

In one incident, a teen, forced to stand in formation at one of the Garrett
County camps in January, suffered frostbite, according to a medical report.

"I was outside in the cold for a while and a couple of hours later noticed
pus," the cadet wrote.

The abuses go back to 1996, when the Backbone Leadership Challenge became
the first of the three boot camps to open.

Guards who wrote a report on a youth's injuries in an August 1997incident
claimed he was resisting discipline and was placed in handcuffs -- and then
hurt himself after he "continually flailed his head from side to side and
into the ground."

But the teen said he was thrown to the ground and a guard put his forearm
across his face until he couldn't breathe. Both of his eyes hemorrhaged
severely, according to medical reports.

"A doctor makes a diagnosis and tells the advocate that the compression of
the cadet's chest and neck along with the hemorrhaging 'is the worst she
has ever seen,' " the task force report says.

Other reports tell of guards tackling juveniles and holding them in the
snow, and of delinquents being punched and slammed to the ground for
smiling during physical training.

Gilberto de Jesus, former secretary of the juvenile justice agency, was
ordered in August by Townsend to end abuses at the camps. Townsend learned
of possible violence at the camps when a reporter questioned her.

De Jesus assured the lieutenant governor that there were no abuses at the
camp, but the task force's report concludes that assaults continued until
Dec. 3. On that day, a teen cut his forehead after a guard "used his body
along with voice commands in an attempt to motivate the juvenile."

Glendening and Townsend suspended the boot camp programs Saturday. Two of
the three camps house about 70 former "cadets" from the program and are
being run temporarily by the Maryland National Guard; the third was closed.

The actions came after The Sun published a four-part series last week that
described assaults by guards against juveniles at one of the camps.
Documents cited in the articles indicated the abuses were common in the
state's other two camps as well.

Maryland State Police are conducting a criminal investigation of guards at
the camps, 14 of whom have been placed on administrative duty. And the FBI
has opened a civil-rights probe into a recent incident in which a cadet's
arm was broken his first day at one of the camps.

The Sun series also highlighted a juvenile probation system in shambles.

The series followed 14 delinquents for nine months after their release from
one of the camps. It found that after-care programs such as drug
rehabilitation existed largely on paper and were ignored by the teens, with
no consequences from the courts or the juvenile justice agency.

Eleven of the 14 delinquents The Sun followed have returned to jail since
their release from the camp last March.

Responding to that portion of the series, Glendening said last week that he
would appoint another task force to look at after-care. A spokesman said
nine people have agreed to serve on the task force, and the governor is
awaiting word from a final person before making an announcement.

The group's job could be more difficult and more important than the report
completed this week by Robinson's group, experts say.

Jack Nadol, whom the governor fired Wednesday as deputy secretary of the
agency after he refused to resign, said yesterday that after-care programs
are where the real abuse of teens takes place -- not in physical beatings
by guards but in neglect by the system.

"The real story is the abuse that's more systemic," he said. "We have kids
who need mental health treatment and aren't getting it, kids who have
substance abuse problems and aren't getting the treatment.

"These have become our throw-away kids."

Susan P. Leviton, a University of Maryland law professor and founder of
Advocates for Children and Youth, said of the after-care study: "It's not
as sexy, but it's what will make the difference.

"You do need additional money, but you do need to really have a different
mind-set, that you are going to ensure that these kids are successful," she
said. "If somehow [probation agents] could see their role as not somebody
to just sign in with, but somebody to work with the kid ... that would be
so much more useful."

David Altschuler, a professor at the Institute for Policy Studies at the
Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu)  who is a national expert on
juvenile probation practices, will be a member of the after-care task force.

In a study 10 years ago, Altschuler found that juvenile probation officers
in Maryland spent more time with youths who were confined than with those
who had been released to the community.

Altschuler said changing the system will be a challenge. "You're talking
about what is happening with kids going into different communities and
situations, and it's not confined to just one or two places," he said.

Vincent Schiraldi, director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
in Washington, said after-care is the key to improving Maryland's juvenile
justice system.

"I think that the kids are essentially told to go forth and sin no more,
and that's after-care in the state of Maryland, and it's no good," he said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D