some issues dealing with utility costs in the spring,
which I know are a big hassle for people. We're
going to focus on property taxes. We've dealt with
crime in many ways, so I think we've done a good job,
but there's always more >> All right. Speaker Vos,
thanks for your time. 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 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 D.A. 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, and thanks very much for
being here. >> 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 the extent of them. So when I saw them, I
was shocked to see that, you know, right out of the
gates, this facility opening in May and having
this happen, it was so disappointing and upsetting
to know that this is kind of the result of, you know,
the Lincoln Hills incidents 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, research across the country would suggest
that it isn't that, you know, that the punitive
nature of these correctional facilities and
how they the power dynamic and these vulnerable youth,
that abuse is a major issue in these facilities. And I
do think that, you know, the culture obviously isn't
what we need it to be. It's not seen as a treatment
facility. It's a 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 de-escalate
situations. They're not trained to recognize in
themselves when they're becoming, you know,
dysregulated and struggling obviously seem to be the
case in 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 focus like they could have. I think that
they had already they already had a facility in
Racine that was housing kids long term, and they
had that just kind of moved 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 how
the kids respond, right, that they have 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
treatment, 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.
>> 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 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 does not seem to happen in Racine. And I
think that, you know, just even that there was four
people involved in this incident. 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. 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