Probe details abuse of youths

Boys at two Maryland juvenile detention centers were frequently abused and beaten by staffers and other detainees, according to a Justice Department probe that found numerous civil rights violations at both facilities.

The Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore County and the Cheltenham Youth Facility in Prince George’s County also failed to meet constitutional standards for services such as medical care, mental health care and suicide prevention, according to the report.

“The conditions in these facilities have subjected youths to serious harm in the past,” R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general, said.

“No juvenile should be exposed to such conditions.”

In the report released on Friday, the Justice Department recommended better screening and training for staff, increased security and fire safety measures, implementing better suicide-prevention programs and improving mental health and medical care.

Juveniles awaiting trial or placement in treatment centers are detained at Cheltenham and Hickey, but the populations of both facilities swelled in recent years as detainees were placed there for longer periods.

The state runs Cheltenham and recently took over management of Hickey from a private contractor, Youth Services International. The state let the contractor’s lease expire last month after staff members were arrested on charges of assaulting boys.

Juvenile Services Secretary Kenneth Montague said he disagreed with some of the report’s findings, but declined to discuss specifics. He said the state had taken several steps to improve conditions, such as reducing the populations of both centers.

“We have made progress,” he said. “Even if they had not come to visit us, we would have been initiating many of these reforms.”

The 51-page report, the result of an investigation opened in August 2002 after numerous accusations of abuse, paints a grim picture of conditions at the two centers.

It lists multiple instances over the past two years in which staff choked, punched and kicked juvenile detainees. The injuries the boys suffered often were so bad they had to be hospitalized.

Staffers have been accused of restraining boys by slamming them to the ground and using holds that blocked their breathing. One boy vomited and lost consciousness in March 2002 after being restrained. He was sent to the hospital with a case of asphyxia.

The report said these incidents rarely appeared in staff reports and often came to light only when complaints were made to the state’s juvenile system independent monitor.

Investigators recount numerous fights that broke out between youths at the centers, including a March 2003 riot at Cheltenham for which police had to be called to quell the violence.

Both centers were faulted for poor suicide-prevention methods. Staff often take too long to identify potentially suicidal boys, don’t do a good job of monitoring those who could harm themselves, and aren’t prepared to handle suicide attempts.

The report concludes the state’s screening was inadequate to identify detainees with mental health problems, improper treatment regimens, inappropriate use of drugs and poor mental health counseling.

The probe also found detainees often had to wait for weeks to see a doctor, citing one case in which a boy complaining of a sore throat was hospitalized with a throat infection after waiting two weeks for medical care. Investigators said he probably would not have needed to go to the hospital if he had received care immediately.

Associated Press writers Tom Stuckey and Brian Witte contributed to this report.