[Pnews] At Wisconsin Juvenile Prisons, Children Face a Nightmare of Solitary Confinement and Abuse

[Prisoner News]

http://solitarywatch.com/2017/02/22/at-wisconsin-juvenile-prisons-children-face-a-nightmare-of-solitary-confinement-and-abuse/ 



  At Wisconsin Juvenile Prisons, Children Face a Nightmare of Solitary
  Confinement and Abuse


    By Valerie Kiebala -
    <http://solitarywatch.com/author/valerie-kiebala/>February 22, 2017

At the Lincoln Hills School for Boys (LHS), a juvenile correctional 
facility in far northern Wisconsin, two entire buildings called the 
Krueger Unit and the Roosevelt Unit exist solely for the purpose of 
holding children in solitary confinement for 22 to 23 hours a day. Each 
unit holds two-dozen isolation cells, which measure seven by ten feet 
and contain only a metal sink, a toilet, a mattress, and an odor of 
sweat and urine. In LHS’s smaller sister facility, Copper Lake School 
for Girls (CLS), one wing of the Wells Unit is reserved for solitary 
confinement. The lights in these cells remains lit 24 hours a day.

Children as young as 14 are sent to these units at the discretion of the 
staff for disciplinary reasons, including minor rule violations, or for 
“asserted security reasons.” According to data from the Wisconsin 
Department of Corrections, from 15 to 20 percent of the approximately 
165 children at LHS and CLS are in solitary confinement at any given 
time, and some remain there for as long as 30 to 60 consecutive days.

Even in a nation where the solitary confinement of youth 
<http://solitarywatch.com/2017/01/05/movement-to-end-juvenile-solitary-confinement-gains-ground-but-hundreds-of-kids-remain-in-isolation/> 
is still widespread, conditions at the Wisconsin facilities are extreme. 
In a federal class-action lawsuit 
<https://aclu-wi.org/sites/default/files/issue/pdf/20170123JJvLitscherComplaintefiled.pdf> 
filed late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin 
and Juvenile Law Center assert that these conditions are also 
unconstitutional. They argue that use of solitary, along with mechanical 
restraints and pepper spray, violate the children’s Eighth Amendment 
rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as their 
Fourteenth Amendment rights to rehabilitation and due process.

Despite their names, LHS and CLS provide minimal education and maximum 
disciplinary measures. For those in solitary, class time may be cut down 
to less than an hour per day, during which the students may have their 
wrists cuffed to a canvas belt around their waist. Every boy sent to 
solitary confinement at LHS for the first time, and many girls at CLS, 
get placed “on the belt.” In addition, the facilities often keep them 
handcuffed during their one-hour breaks from solitary confinement, 
sometimes even during their showers.

JJ 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/25/solitary-confinement-as-a-child-lincoln-hills-prison-guards>, 
one of the four named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, has been diagnosed with 
ADHD and placed in solitary confinement on ten separate occasions. While 
in solitary, he was placed “on the belt” for most of his time out of the 
cell. Another plaintiff, C.M., spent two weeks in solitary for two rule 
violations, though “neither incident involved any violence or threat to 
security.” He was never provided any written notice of charges. He too, 
in accordance with the facilities’ policy, was placed “on the belt” for 
several days.

A third plaintiff, R.N., had been on suicide watch before he pulled a 
fan’s electrical cord through his food slot and tied it around his neck. 
The suit claims that before the guards filled his solitary confinement 
cell with pepper spray, they yanked on the cord, as evidenced by the 
marks left on R.N.’s neck.

In a separate lawsuit 
<http://courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/SydniBriggs.pdf>, 
filed within a week of the first, the family of Sydni Briggs 
<http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/2017/01/28/girl-gravely-injured-suicide-attempt-copper-lake-prison/97131498/> 
claim deliberate indifference to the 16-year-old girl’s well-being on 
the part of CLS staff. The suit states that Briggs hit her call light to 
summon a guard before slinging a homemade noose over a doorknob and 
around her neck. While it is unclear how long the guards took to reach 
Briggs, her suicide attempt induced a month-long coma and permanent 
severe brain damage.

The State of Wisconsin was clearly aware of conditions at the two 
facilities long before these lawsuits were filed. Following an 
investigation by the state of Wisconsin, the FBI launched its own 
investigation more than a year ago. According to the /Milwaukee Journal 
Sentinel 
<http://solitarywatch.com/2017/02/22/at-wisconsin-juvenile-prisons-children-face-a-nightmare-of-solitary-confinement-and-abuse/The%20sweeping%20criminal%20probe,%20now%20nearly%202%20years%20old,%20is%20examining%20allegations%20of%20prisoner%20abuse,%20child%20neglect,%20sexual%20assault,%20intimidation%20of%20witnesses%20and%20victims,%20strangulation%20and%20tampering%20with%20public%20records.%20A%20separate%20internal%20investigation%20uncovered%20four%20incidents%20where%20inmates%27%20bones%20were%20broken.>/, 
“The sweeping criminal probe…is examining allegations of prisoner abuse, 
child neglect, sexual assault, intimidation of witnesses and victims, 
strangulation and tampering with public records.” Even a former guard 
told the newspaper that the environment at the youth prisons was like 
“the ninth circle of Hell.”

National and international organizations or agreements that have 
prohibited or strictly limited one or more of the practices employed at 
these facilities with regard to children include the National Commission 
on Correctional Health Care, World Health Organization, Office of 
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Department of 
Justice, American Medical Association, American Academy of Child and 
Adolescent Psychiatry, UN Rules for Protection of Juveniles Deprived of 
their Liberty, UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, 
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and UN Standard Minimum Rules for 
the Treatment of Prisoners. Both Juan E. Méndez, the former UN Special 
Rapporteur on Torture, and former President Barack Obama have called for 
a total ban on the use of juvenile solitary confinement. The Stop 
Solitary for Kids <http://www.stopsolitaryforkids.org/>campaign was 
recently founded to unite advocates working for an end the practice.

Beyond the legal issues, treating children in this manner has been shown 
not only to negate the few rehabilitative efforts the facilities 
provide, but also to exacerbate any prior mental health problems. 
According to the ACLU and JLC lawsuit, “a substantial percentage of the 
youth held at LHS and CLS have a history of childhood trauma, mental 
illness, cognitive impairments, or developmental disabilities.”

Sydni Briggs, for example, had a history of post-traumatic stress 
disorder, severe anxiety, insomnia, depression, and suicidal behavior. 
Although the facility had extensive knowledge of this, Briggs often 
faced disciplinary action, including solitary confinement, instead of 
proper mental health care. A CLS guard revealed 
<http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/2017/01/28/girl-gravely-injured-suicide-attempt-copper-lake-prison/97131498/> 
that suicide attempts had become so frequent that “he struggled to keep 
from becoming numb to them.”

The ACLU and JLC case presents evidence that the defendants – the 
Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, the Administrator 
of Division of Juvenile Corrections of the Wisconsin DOC, the 
Superintendent of LHS and CLS, and the Director of Security for LHS and 
CLS – “are aware or should be aware of the risks of solitary confinement 
and restraints, but have deliberately chosen to ignore those risks.” 
They argue that the nightmarish reality of these facilities points to 
neglect by the people controlling them.

Legally confronting these violations accomplishes the essential action 
of holding responsible the officials at fault. But if this system of 
disciplinary severity is to be uprooted, another approach must fill its 
void.

Youth Justice Milwaukee (YJM), a “collective voice of persons who were 
incarcerated as youth, families of those who were or are currently 
incarcerated as youth, local advocates for youth, and national experts 
on youth justice,” presents an alternative paradigm. Even before the 
lawsuits surfaced against the two Wisconsin facilities, YJM presented a 
report with recommendations to address the violence of the incarceration 
system at LHS and CLS. This 14-page report 
<http://www.urbanunderground.org/publications>, entitled /Safer 
Communities, Stronger Families/, delineates a model based in community 
engagement.

The report begins by asserting that the “responsibility for providing 
juvenile programs and services should be in the hands of the county 
where youth live.” Most of the children held there at LHS and CLS have 
been transported from Milwaukee, a 3.5-hour drive away.

The ACLU and JLC lawsuit also states that the majority of the youth held 
at the two facilities are African American, though most of the staff is 
white and from the rural north of Wisconsin. As Jessica Feierman, 
Associate Director of the Juvenile Law Center, pointed out in an 
interview with Solitary Watch, “The treatment of young people at CLS and 
LHS is troubling under any circumstances, but it is particularly 
devastating when you think of how it functions as part of this racial 
disparity.” The YJM report describes the racial makeup of Wisconsin’s 
juvenile correctional facilities: Only comprising 10 percent of the 
state’s total youth population, African Americans comprise 70 percent of 
the youth in juvenile correction facilities.

In order to address these disparities, YJM first recommends an increase 
in public safety through the creation of community-based programs that 
address the needs and struggles of young people, including “family, 
housing, education, vocational training, employment, emotional health, 
medical, substance abuse, legal, finances, recreation, culture, and 
spirituality.” According to YJM, shifting these services to a local, 
community-centered system would allow for the dissipation of the racial 
and ethnic disparities currently plaguing the system. YJM suggests the 
necessary funding for these services be reallocated from the 
incarceration facilities, which currently spend an estimated $100,000 on 
each youth.

Moving even deeper into the community, YJM also pushes for meaningful 
engagement with families of youth in the system. After reaching out to 
families in the community, YJM found overwhelming support from families 
for this recommendation. The final point of the report expounds upon a 
process to ensure greater transparency, accountability, and 
effectiveness in juvenile justice services.

One of YJM’s principles reads, “to achieve real and lasting change, we 
should not only seek to move people in positions of power, but also to 
build power in our communities.” Recognition by federal courts of the 
unconstitutional inhumanities committed at Lincoln Hills School and 
Copper Lake School could be a first step toward opening up space for a 
sustainable method of public safety, mental health, and racial equality 
built at the heart of the community.

It is clear, however, that change will not come quickly or easily, under 
the leadership of Republican Governor Scott Walker. Earlier this month, 
Walker released his budget proposal, which neglected to address the 
abuses and failures of the juvenile prisons. Instead, according to a 
report by the Associated Press 
<http://www.startribune.com/critics-pan-walker-s-budget-on-youth-prison/413493753/>, 
the budget allocates “$2 million to create eight new guard positions, 
three new mental health specialist positions for the prison’s female 
wing and convert nine contract nursing positions to state positions.” 
The addition of these new positions still leaves the facilities 50 
guards short of the guard-to-inmate ratio required by the Prison Rape 
Elimination Act.

Although the Department of Corrections requested $3.7 million for 
“serious juvenile offender care and community supervision,” Walker not 
only rejected this request, but failed to provide any acknowledgement of 
or funding for the egregious conditions at LHS and CLS. In fact, 
Walker’s 2011 closure of two other youth prisons in the state, done to 
save money, are said to have contributed to the overcrowded and hellish 
conditions at LHS and CLS.

Even if its requests for funding were met, it is clear that the 
Wisconsin DOC has no intention of eliminating solitary confinement for 
the children in its charge, unless it is forced to do so by litigation 
or legislation. At a hearing held this week by the Wisconsin state 
Assembly’s Corrections Committee, DOC Secretary Jon Litscher conceded 
that while there may be too many children in solitary, the practice is 
needed “to bolster safety and security,” the AP reports 
<http://www.startribune.com/prisons-chief-tells-lawmaker-youth-facility-is-safe/414366793/>. 
“They are there for a reason,” Litscher told the committee.

The JLC’s Jessica Feierman vehemently disagrees. “There is an increasing 
recognition that solitary confinement is inappropriate for juveniles 
under any circumstances,” she told Solitary Watch, citing President 
Obama’s ban on juvenile solitary in federal facilities and bans in a 
growing number of states. The solitary confinement of children, she 
said, is not a legitimate correctional practice, but a “human rights 
violation.”

On a Facebook page 
<https://www.facebook.com/Lincoln-Hills-School-Investigation-654997074640719/> 
for survivors of the abuse at Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake 
School and their families, some expressed hope that they would finally 
witness some change at the facilities. Some were less optimistic. One 
girl described the ordeal she and others went through at CLS, and 
concluded: “Who cares? Nobody… nobody but me, their families, and people 
with a heart.”

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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