Nine years after a lawsuit over
abuse of juveniles at Lincoln Hills
and Copper Lake Youth Prisons in
Northern Wisconsin, the facilities
still operate.
The 2021 state mandated
deadline to close them has long
since passed and been extended.
They're to be replaced with a new
youth prison in Milwaukee set to
open this year and county-based
secure residential care centers.
The footage you're about to see
could be disturbing.
Just after the first such care
center opened in Racine County
last spring, the state public
defender's office learned of an
incident shown on camera.
Where a 15-year-old housed in
the Jonathan Delagrave Youth
Development and Care Center was
punched repeatedly by adult
security workers.
Staff was asking the boy to return
to his room and he can be
heard saying, don't touch me.
The boy's family has retained a
civil attorney and the office of
representative Angelina Cruz
told us she is working to
learn more about the incident.
With the possible intention of
having the governor's office
investigate the facility.
For its part, in a statement to
WPR, the administrator
of youth rehabilitation services
for Racine County said,
situations like this are complex
and unfold quickly,
and said, we maintain our
commitment to ensuring that staff
have the training, oversight,
and support needed to manage
difficult situations appropriately
and professionally.
The Racine County DA declined to
prosecute the security staffers,
but how does this kind of treatment
of a youth offender in trouble for
retail theft square with
best practices?
We turn to the Youth Defense
Practice Coordinator in the State
Public Defender's Office, Eileen
And thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
So when you first saw this footage
from cameras inside the
facility, what was your reaction?
I was horrified.
I had known that there were these
allegations, but obviously they
didn't know kind of the extent of
them. So when I saw them, I was
shocked to see that, right
out of the gates, this facility
opening in May and having this
happen is so disappointing
and upsetting to know that
this is kind of
the result of the Lincoln Hills
incident and all of the problems
there. Now we have this new facility
opening and the same problems seem
to still be there.
Is this kind of incident a rarity,
do you think, behind the doors of
these facilities?
I mean, research across the
country would suggest that
it isn't.
That the punitive
nature of these correctional
facilities and how the
power dynamic in these vulnerable
youth, that abuse is a
major issue in these facilities.
And I do think that the culture
obviously isn't what we need it to
be. It's not seen as a treatment
facility. It's a jail, essentially,
for kids.
And with that attitude,
I think the staff thinks of it that
way. And they're not
necessarily trained in
a treatment mindset.
They're not trained to kind of
deescalate situations.
They're are not trained to recognize
themselves when they're becoming,
you know, dysregulated and
struggling, obviously seem to be
the case in this situation.
Because this facility,
when it talks about itself,
it talks that kind of care and
support, but
it looks just like
a correctional facility.
And I think that when they
built this, they had
all this beautiful ideas
about what it was gonna look like,
but they did not
really, I think, have a
treatment focus like they could
have.
I think they already
had a
facility in Rustine that was
housing kids long-term, and
they had that just kind of moved to
this nice new building and hoped
that it would kind of just carry
itself.
The culture and the staff and the
ideas that the workers are coming
with are really what drive
how the kids respond,
right? That they have the
support that they need, that they're
building relationships, that they
want to help the kids, that the see
the kids as kids and not as
criminals or inmates.
Well, you've touched on this a
little bit, but why does this kind
of volatile violence inside
these facilities persist?
I do think it's a cultural thing,
and I think that they just
are not basically
coming from a treatment model to
begin with, that they're kind of
like, this is a correctional
facility, this is prison for
kids, they call the school,
but you know, everything about it
kind of screams like it's more,
we're just controlling these kids,
not we're actually trying to
rehabilitate them.
And so there are residential
treatment centers in the state that
actually are built around model of
treatments.
They are much more, I
think, working on
rehabilitating
and building relationships and
providing therapy and doing
assessments and seeing what needs
the kids have and then responding to
those needs, where I think that this
is a setting where it's a much more
one size fits all and really
they don't have the
goal of getting to the bottom of
kind of what was going on.
They're more just trying to hold
them for the time that they, you
know, keep them out of the community
for the times that.
They feel is appropriate and
is allowable under the law.
What kinds of laws do
staff and administrators of these
juvenile facilities have to follow
pertaining to treatment of
children that are housed in them?
So as far as their, you know,
qualifications, I just think that
they, a lot of them just need to
have a high school diploma, these
people who are coming in there, and
they're not, the counselors are
not the ones who are supposed to be
necessarily providing the treatment,
but the whole culture of the
institution or like of the facility
is very much driven
by who the kids are seeing on
a regular basis.
And they're much more frequently
seeing these youth counselors than
the people who are kind of the
correctional guards there than they
are the treatment providers that
might be there once a week or
something like that.
So they do need to be building
relationships and understanding
the kids and trying to figure out
how to address the
needs that they have.
So I think that there needs to
be a lot more training ahead of
time, they need to much more
thoughtful about who they're hiring
and these jobs don't pay
well. So it isn't that
we're gonna get people who have tons
of experience working with kids, but
we have to have people with the
right mindsets, who are empathetic,
who understand trauma, who wanna
work with kids.
Not people who are thinking they're
coming in this correctional setting
where they can control.
Those are a list of kind of best
practices for
helping and supporting and also
housing youth offenders.
There are lots of resources
out there. You know, the Annie E.
Casey Foundation,
the Galt Center that
provide guidelines and
they put out things, the Sentencing
Project. There's lots of resource
that talk about the harms of
incarceration just to begin with.
So first of all, I think we should
be using it as an absolute resort,
last resort.
We should not be incarcerating kids
if we don't need to.
And somebody who's in there for
retail theft, I don't think that's
appropriate.
But I think that when there are
times, I wouldn't.
People need to, you know, when
people are, they feel like there are
no other options and no other
placements will take them and that
they need to do this for the
protection of the community, there
are best practices that
really look at assessment, that
really at getting to the bottom of
like, what are their actual needs
and how can we specifically address
those needs and having an
individualized for each kid there
so that, and then also,
when they are able to be released
for a time, you know some of these
facilities, There was a...
The transfer over from
this facility in
Racine, there was a program that was
just a detention facility that's
also allowable under the statute
that allowed for, you know,
there's a potential for kids to be
able to be released for small
periods of time.
And that helps kids build skills
to like be out in the community that
they can't build when
they're locked up and they don't
have the opportunities that they
have. So I think that
there are lots of clear best
practices.
We need to get on board with in this
state.
As additional facilities open,
including the one in Milwaukee,
how might this incident in Racine
inform the treatment and care of
juvenile offenders?
They need to really look at these
best practices, they need to be very
careful about how they're staffing
these places.
They need have a leadership that is
empathetic, that is positive
in their mindset toward these kids,
and really be focused
on making sure
that they hire people who
kind of demonstrate a positive
culture in the
facility.
That did not seem to happen in
Racine, and I think that you know,
just even that there was four people
involved in this incident and
then it just didn't come out and I
just don't know how that happens.
It needs to be that everybody kind
of is like, you know eyes on and
expecting of each other that they're
treating these kids with care and
compassion.
We leave it there.
Eileen Fredericks, thanks very much.
Thank you.
The works in corrections or
in juvenile corrections
saying, you have no idea
how these kids come to us,
right? I mean, as we know,
there's a lot of
baggage and trauma and
anger and all of that.
Yeah, I mean I
work with those kids every day and
like they are you know
95% of the time absolutely
regulated and can be very calm.
I mean there are some extreme
examples where kids are really out
of control you know but these
kids do not need to be treated like
animals and they kind of are like
the facility that
was in Racine, the detention
facility before they moved over.
They basically had kind of a
philosophy of like, we're just gonna
observe the kids.
Like, we'll have them in the room by
themselves and we'll just make sure
nothing bad happens.
But that's not rehabilitate, that's
jail. That's you and yourself,
we'll make sure that you don't hurt
each other because that would
be against our rules, but not like
any real effort to
make things better for them, you
know? And when they moved over to
this new facility, that wasn't
gonna be allowable under this, whole
plan for like the secure
residential.
Care centers and a lot
of the staff like balked at that
they're like we're not
gonna do you know
we're gonna sit
down and talk with these kids you
know same thing that you were just
saying like these kids are out of
control and then it clearly
is problematic and I think
that they you know probably should
have been like you
know unless we feel confident that
you're going to be able to get on
board with this new philosophy and
really wanting to build relationship
with the kids and we can't keep you.
But I don't think they did that.
You would think that they're, well,
I mean, it's not easy.
I get it. Right, I get.
It isn't.
And I think that it is very hard to
get out of the mindset
that, like, because our
whole country is, like
kind of built around this.
And something you didn't say is,
like, you know, kids are not little
adults. But I think it's easiest
for judges and even some of
the people who are involved to just,
like handle juvenile court like
adult court. And, like the options
in adult court are, you know,
probation. And
it's harder for them to wrap their
head around like, well, we could try
these treatment centers or there's
all these community-based services
that the county could contract to
provide all this help for these
kids. And they, instead of doing,
you know, let's have a
conversation, you now, and see
what would best meet their needs,
they're kind of like, well, they've
messed up at home so many times, we
can't do supervision again, and we
don't wanna pay for one of these
other facilities, so we're gonna put
them in the jail. And that's
essentially what the Racine County
Detention Center was prior
to the move.
There's more regulation now
where it's now that secured
residential care center where they
have to follow more guidelines
in terms of what they have provide,
but it's still under-regulated
and it's kind of like hoping
that the right people
are in the right positions there
to build a culture that
actually rehabilitates kids and
helps them and isn't
super punitive, which
these kind of facilities tend to be.
How's that boy doing?
I think he's doing okay.
I talk to his lawyer all the time
about him. I haven't met him myself,
but it sounds like,
you know, they're still trying to
move him. He still very much wants
to be moved.
And he does have, you knows,
struggles, but he's like, it sounds
very affable
and like silly and like a
nice young kid.
Obviously he has like at these times
like dysregulation and outbursts,
but it seems like he's pretty good.
Okay, given the circumstances,
I mean, he really wants to get out
of there. Um, I don't
know that there's been like
a lot of, um,
major issues with him,
but they still are looking for
places and we're seen as notorious
for not wanting to pay for treatment
centers, especially for when
they can keep the kids in the county
and pay within the county
for a placement.
And so they have used their jail,
their detention center, and then now
this facility.
For every kid, and it's not a good
fit for every kids.
It's not good for most kids,
but there's definitely kids who are
more in need of treatment.
They basically,
you know, they're more in need
of treatment, but they are just
like, well, if we lock them up here,
then we can tell you good reasons
why this is better.
Like, he can still visit his mom.
If we send him to a treatment center
in Milwaukee or Green Bay,
then they would be right.
But it's like, that doesn't
override, you
know, actually getting the help that
he needs and addressing the problems
that he has.
So, but the places are expensive,
so.
And that's born by the county.
It is, yeah.
The county pays for those
placements.
And then they do have to pay for
corrections and stuff, but for
the...
The money is all funneled back to
Racine. So, and that's how it was
with the detention center too.
So it's all just keeping the money
in the county,
over caring about what's best for
the kid and what services the kid
could benefit from the most.
Yeah. I had a case with them too.
This is the same lawyer who he's
really great too.
He had a kid who
literally, this kid was in the
facility and he was struggling and
they just didn't feel like it was
working for him. At like a lower IQ.
And their curriculum is not,
like it doesn't work for kids
who have a lower IQ because it's a
lot of reading and like having to do
a lot of like workbooks on your own.
So it's not designed for somebody
with a lower Q.
And so he was looking for,
he's like, I think this kid should
go to a treatment center.
And the guardian was saying, I can't
deal with him. I can have him here.
Like I'm not able to meet his needs.
So they tracked down his mom
who he had not seen
since.
Before he was one, he was placed
with this guardian, and they're
like, do you want your son back?
And they were just like, oh, we can
save money, we'll just put him back
with her. She had lots
of stuff in her background that
would suggest that she wasn't going
to be able to handle this and that
it wouldn't be a good idea, but it
was all about money.
And they put him there for
a week before
the police got called in.
But that was something where if we
would have suggested it, and we're
like, oh, how about this person that
they haven't seen in forever, we
place them there, I bet they'll
do great.
The judge would have been like, you're
crazy, but the human services did
it, and they're like okay, let's try
it.
And then probably set back
that kid from even being able to
have a relationship with his mom in
the future, you know,
several steps back, because now she
called the police on him, she wasn't
set ready to have him, they didn't
have a relationships, they have all
this baggage.
When I heard that, that made me just
know for sure that they
are really more concerned with
money than they are with well-being
for kids.
And they did that with, that's why
they are always putting kids in this
basement, and that's they
put this kid with a stranger,
essentially.
Mm-hmm.
Over at a treatment center.
He did end up going to the treatment
center after he...
It's so sad.
Yeah. So sad.
Do they still do that
thing where they
send kids out of the