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 Delegrave 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 Fredericks. 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 I 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 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 the research across the country would suggest that it isn't, that the punitive nature
of these correctional facilities and how they, the power dynamic and these vulnerable youth
that abuse isn't on 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 de-escalate
situations. They're not trained to recognize themselves when they're becoming, you know,
dysregulated and struggling. It obviously seemed to be the case in this situation.
Because this facility, when it talks about itself, it talks about that kind of care and support.
But it looks just like a correctional facility. Yes, and I think that, you know, when they built
this, they, you know, had all this beautiful ideas about what it was going to look like. But
they did not really, I think, have a treatment focused like they could have. I think that they
already had a facility in Christine that was housing kids long term. And they had that just
kind of move to this nice new building in hopes that it would kind of just carry itself. But
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 they see the kids as kids and not as
criminals or inmates. 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
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 a 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 a model of treatments. And they are much more, I think,
working on, you know, 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, you know, 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 time 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 and 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,
you know, ahead of time they need to be much more thoughtful about who they're hiring and,
you know, these jobs don't pay well. So it isn't that we're going to 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 want to work with kids,
not people who are thinking they're coming this correctional setting where they can control
kids. Well, is there 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 EKC Foundation,
the Galt Center, who provide guidelines and they put out things that sentencing project,
there's lots of resources 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 when 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 look 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 transfer over from this facility in Racine. There was a
program that was just a detention facility that's also allowed one to 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 so like be out in the community that, you know, 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 that we need to get on board with in the 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. He says they need to have a leadership
that is empathetic, that is, you know, positive in their mindset toward these kids and really
be focused on making sure that they hire people who have 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.
It's, yeah, I mean, I work with those kids every day and like they are, you know, 95 percent 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 like 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 going to 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 rehabilitative. That's geo. That's you or 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 this new facility,
that wasn't going to be allowable under this, the whole plan for like these secure residential
care centers. And a lot of the staff like balked at that. They're like, we're not going to do,
you know, we're not going to 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 kind of 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 a 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 guess. I get it. 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 jail. So 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 know,
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 want to pay for one of these other
facilities. So we're going to 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, you know, more guidelines in terms of
what they have to provide, but it's still under regulated. And it's still kind of like hoping
that the right people are in the right positions there to build a culture that that actually
rehabilitates kids and helps them and isn't, you know, 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 know, struggles,
but he's like, it sounds like like very affable and like silly and like a nice young kid. Obviously
he has like at these times like dysregulation and outbursts, but he's doing pretty good. I mean,
okay, given the circumstances, I mean, he really wants to get out of there. I don't know that there's
been like a lot of major issues with him, but they still are looking for places. And Racine is
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 replacement. And so they have used their jail,
their detention center, and then now this facility kind of for every kid. And it's not a good fit
for every kid. It's not a good fit for most kids. But there's definitely kids who are more in need
of like treatment that they basically, you know, they're more in need of treatment that 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 it would be right. But it's like that doesn't override,
you know, actually getting the help that he needs and addressing that problem that he has.
So, but the places are expensive. And that's born by the county, Ben. It is. Yeah, the county
pays for those places. And then they do have to pay, you know, for corrections and stuff, but for the
the the sir seat, 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 at 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. He had 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 IQ. 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't have him here. Like I'm not able to meet his needs. So they
tracked down his mom who he had not seen since like he was 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 could
see money. We'll just put him back with her. She had like 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 like all about money. And they put her back there for, you know, a week before the
police got called in. But that was like something or if we would have suggested it and we're like,
oh, how about the person that they haven't seen in forever? We placed them there. I thought 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 sat 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 ready to have him. They didn't have a relationship. They have all
this baggage. When I heard that, like that made me like 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 why they put this kid
with a stranger essentially over a treatment center. He did end up going to the treatment center after
he bombed out of mom. It's so sad. Yeah. So sad. Do they still do that thing? Do they still do
that thing where they send kids out of the city?