LOCAL JUVENILE HALLS ASSAILED CIVIL RIGHTS OF KIDS REGULARLY VIOLATED, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SAYS.Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer U.S. Department of Justice investigators found that Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County officials regularly violate jailed children's civil rights by using chemical sprays and hogtying procedures, a report released Thursday said. The 49-page report, the result of a two-year investigation found children in the county's three juvenile jails in Sylmar, Downey and Lincoln Heights Lincoln Heights may refer to:
About half of the 24,000 children in the county's juvenile probation system, including 1,600 in the three juvenile halls, are mentally ill but only a quarter get treatment. The report said employees frequently over-medicated youths with up to 16 different psychotropic drugs psychotropic drug Psychoactive drug Pharmacology A drug that affects brain activities associated with mental processes and behavior Categories Anti-psychotics; antidepressants; antianxiety drugs or anxiolytics; hypnotics. , and sometimes cursed and demeaned mentally ill children and victims of sexual abuse. Probation Department Chief Deputy Paul Higa said officials are working to reform the system based on the Justice Department's recommendations and have spent $6 million to hire more mental health professionals to screen children coming into the halls. Higa said overcrowding overcrowding overcrowding of animal accommodation. Many countries now publish codes of practice which define what the appropriate volumetric allowances should be for each species of animal when they are housed indoors. Breaches of these codes is overcrowding. was reduced by putting more children under house arrest, reducing the inmate population from 1,900 to 1,600 since 2001. ``Their biggest issue relative to the use of force was the use of physical restraints Physical restraint refers to the practice of rendering people helpless or keeping them in captivity by means such as handcuffs, shackles, straitjackets, ropes, straps, or other forms of physical restraint. and pepper spray. ... We've tried to retrain re·train tr. & intr.v. re·trained, re·train·ing, re·trains To train or undergo training again. re·train staff to de-escalate situations and use mental health resources to help us deal with issues such as behavioral misconduct.'' The Justice Department may sue to correct shortcomings A shortcoming is a character flaw. Shortcomings may also be:
The investigation was launched in 2000 after a critical report by the county grand jury. The Board of Supervisors recently authorized repairing facilities. The report, by Assistant Attorney General Ralph F. Boyd Jr., described the system as unsafe for children and workers alike. At Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey in 2001, workers hogtied a boy with restraints on his ankles and wrists, with his wrists behind his back and the boy lying on his stomach, a position that can cause asphyxiation asphyxiation /as·phyx·i·a·tion/ (as-fix?e-a´shun) suffocation; the stoppage of respiration. Asphyxiation Oxygen starvation of tissues. . ``The probation staff member who conducted the restraint stated that he had not received training on the use of physical restraints for two years,'' investigators wrote. Investigators also found staff used chemical sprays excessively and without justification, such as when a handcuffed girl threatening suicide was held by two staff members while a third sprayed her. ``Because staff were able to hold her, the use of pepper spray in this case was unwarranted. We found in other cases that staff sprayed youth for talking back or `disrespecting' staff, standing up when ordered to be seated, yelling or banging on doors.'' |
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