Leader-Telegram
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Three months after allegations surfaced about abuse, neglect and sexual assault of juveniles at Wisconsin’s youth prisons, three boys and one girl from Eau Claire County remain at the embattled facilities.
Eau Claire County officials said last week they have followed up with the four local juveniles being held at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls and come away confident they have not been mistreated.
“We are convinced nothing has happened to them,” said Tom Wirth, deputy director of the county’s human services department. “We continue to monitor for that.”
Officials determined the situation merited extra attention after a state investigation of Lincoln Hills indicated that guards may be guilty of crimes ranging from sexual assault to physical abuse of juveniles detained there.
Not only is the FBI heading a criminal investigation of the facilities near the Lincoln County village of Irma, about 30 miles north of Wausau, but U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil recently confirmed federal agents also are looking into the possibility of civil rights violations at the youth prisons run by the state Department of Corrections.
The allegations caught officials by surprise in Eau Claire County, which typically has two to four youths at a time in Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake.
“We were appalled to hear of the incidences,” Wirth said. “We always are very concerned about where we place our youth ... We have been doing that under the good faith of knowing that the facility had security in place and had checks and balances in place, and so we feel that the system let us down.”
Diane Cable, director of the county’s human services department, explained that the court can order juveniles be sent to Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake when it is deemed that local juvenile detention facilities are inadequate.
“It’s a higher level of security and related to the level of offense that has occurred by the juvenile,” Cable said.
Local officials expressed confidence the state has made significant changes in operations at Lincoln Hills, including putting some staff members on administrative leave. The investigations already have led to the resignation of former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall and the departures of former Lincoln Hills superintendent John Ourada and state juvenile corrections head Paul Westerhaus.
“We believe at this point that children are being treated the way they need to be treated in that facility,” Wirth said.
Angie Goss of Eau Claire is not so sure.
Her son, Austin, 17, who she said has been held at Lincoln Hills for more than a year, has told her about disturbing behavior at the facility even in recent weeks.
“The last time I visited him he said he is still afraid of some of the other kids and he doesn’t feel safe,” Goss said.
She added that one day last week she got a call at 4:30 a.m. from staff at Lincoln Hills saying they had pepper-sprayed Austin and put him in segregation — a form of solitary confinement Austin has reported being subjected to for months at a time and in which Goss said he typically receives no educational services.
“He has told me he has been pepper-sprayed so many times it doesn’t even bother him anymore,” Goss said, noting that Austin reported guards being aggressive toward him and other residents long before news of the investigation broke.
Her son was shackled at the wrists and ankles and wearing just a brown smock when Goss recently visited Lincoln Hills, she said. Goss tries to visit Austin once every month or two and hopes to increase the frequency soon.
“No boy ends up there because they’re an angel, but they don’t deserve to be treated like that no matter what they did. You treat somebody like a human being, not like an animal. Even animals are treated better than the way the kids are up there,” said Goss, who first told the Leader-Telegram about her Lincoln Hills concerns in December when media reports broke about the abuse allegations.
Goss said Austin was sent to Lincoln Hills for breaking two windows in an Eau Claire Academy van — an offense she doesn’t consider serious enough to merit that placement.
“It blows me away that he was ever sentenced to Lincoln Hills and that they continue to hold him there,” Goss said. “What he did was wrong, and I understand that, but I don’t think that what he did was worthy of going to Lincoln Hills.”
Austin was removed from his mother’s custody when he was 6 years old after authorities discovered Goss had issues with alcohol abuse. Austin, who was placed in foster care and subsequently was in and out of trouble, hasn’t attended regular school since first grade, Goss said.
She worries about him coming out of Lincoln Hills with a criminal mentality when she believes he entered with just what she termed “complicated behavioral problems.”
“He kind of got eaten up by the system,” Goss said. “I feel awful because my problems are what started all this, and I don’t know what to do.”
She is hopeful Austin will at least get to return to the Northwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Eau Claire within the next couple of months.
Goss called for Lincoln Hills to be shut down and replaced by smaller facilities around the state that would be closer to family members and easier to supervise.
Directors of the human services departments in Chippewa and Dunn counties said they haven’t had any kids placed at the juvenile prisons for several years. The DOC says two juveniles from Jackson County are committed to Lincoln Hills, but none currently from Buffalo, Pepin, Pierce, Rusk or Trempealeau counties.
Kristin Korpela, human services director in Dunn County, said the county simply hasn’t had any juveniles offend in a manner that would warrant such a placement. As a general rule, youths sent to those facilities have either failed to change their behavior after other interventions or committed an offense so serious that the prison setting is deemed necessary to protect the public, she said.
“That being said, similarly to prison, sometimes the unintended effect of placing a juvenile in a correctional setting is the making of a better criminal,” Korpela said. “It is a placement ... that needs to be used judiciously.”
Chippewa County has increased its community options and been using those services for juvenile offenders, said human services director Larry Winter, adding that it would take a pattern of offenses or a significant crime such as a murder to merit placement at Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake.
As a result of the large percentage of offenders at Lincoln Hills with a history of affiliation with Milwaukee gangs, “we prefer to not have our youth exposed socially and pick up new habits,” Winter said.
Chippewa County typically uses the juvenile detention center in Eau Claire for long-term placements, he said.
Wirth and Cable said Eau Claire County officials are always looking at services they could offer locally to keep kids closer to home, but they haven’t asked the court to release the local juveniles held at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. Instead, they focused on ensuring the state was taking adequate steps to fix the problems at those secure facilities.
“Unfortunately, we just have some cases where the court feels, and justifiably so because that’s their role, that the level of threat, the level of wrongdoing that was committed, means the best decision is to send the person to Corrections,” Wirth said.
By contrast, the Milwaukee County Board last month declared a “state of emergency” and approved removing all 170 or so of its teenagers that were at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, although most of them remain at those facilities, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported recently.
Cable said she couldn’t talk about specific cases such as the treatment of Austin as described by Goss.
“From our perspective, we believe there were some inappropriate things that happened over there,” Wirth said, “and we believe the system responded appropriately by coming in and evaluating and following up on the allegations that occurred.”
At this point, Wirth said, “the kids are being given the benefit of having people there supporting them and their treatment is in line with what’s appropriate at a facility like that.”
Democratic legislators believe more must be done to ensure proper treatment of both juveniles and adults in facilities operated by the Corrections department.
Forty Democrats, including Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, Rep. Dana Wachs, D-Eau Claire, and Rep. Chris Danou, D-Trempealeau, last week sent a letter to the Republican co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Audit calling for an audit of the Department of Corrections. The letter suggests the combination of staff shortages and inmate overcrowding creates a dangerous situation.
With so many red flags, an audit by the widely respected, nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau seems like the best way to understand the systemic problems faced by DOC and to help lawmakers craft solutions, Vinehout said.
She called reports of mistreatment of juveniles “appalling” and said Goss’ allegations related to her son being shackled and held in solitary confinement were “sobering.”
“It’s hard to imagine,” Vinehout said, “that something like this actually happens anywhere in America, much less in Wisconsin with our tax dollars.”
The state Department of Corrections released a statement Friday, saying “significant changes” are being made, including hiring a new division administrator and superintendent at Lincoln Hills.
“As part of this process, DOC has reviewed and overhauled (Division of Juvenile Corrections) policies and procedures, including the adoption of body cameras by security staff at (Lincoln Hills) to document interactions with youth,” the statement read. “Other policies that have changed include the adoption of stronger notification requirements to alert committing counties and parents or guardians of incidents.”
The department also has increased training for current and new employees, the DOC stated.
“Under Secretary Litscher’s leadership, DOC is gathering input from youth at (Lincoln Hills), parents, DOC employees, and other stakeholders to determine the best path forward,” the statement read.
Coypright 2016 the Leader-Telegram