By Megan Schrader
The Gazette
DENVER — A bill to open for public scrutiny reports of incidents like rapes and assaults at the state’s youth detention facilities cleared its first committee hearing Thursday as lawmakers work to make the Department of Youth Corrections more transparent and accountable.
The department is exempt in state statue from the Colorado Open Records Act, and both lawmakers and journalists alike were frustrated by the lack of openness last summer amid reports that one of the department’s facilities, Spring Creek Youth Services Center in Colorado Springs, had become unsafe for both juveniles housed there and the staff and teachers working there.
“It’s been a challenge to really drill down and find out exactly what’s going on at Spring Creek because of the limitation of release of information,” Rep. Pete Lee, D-Colorado Springs, said. “We were talking all last spring, summer and fall about how to make modifications in the law to enable us to really perform the governance and oversight function.”
House Bill 1131 would add an exception to the department’s exemption and require the release of critical incident reports with the names of juveniles and other protected information redacted. Lee said those reports would help shed light on what is happening to the youth incarcerated in state facilities.
It passed unanimously out of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday and now heads to the House Appropriations Committee. It is co-sponsored by Rep. Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo.
Jennifer Corrigan, legislative liaison for the Department of Human Services, which oversees youth corrections, said they were happy with the process the bill had taken and supported it after several amendments were made.
“The department is in support of this bill as it will enable us to better tell the story of what has been occurring in our facilities,” said Robert Werthwein, acting director of youth corrections. “We truly value transparency. We don’t have the perfect system, but we strive to be and want to have the conversation about how to be better.”
Werthwein said the new bill would also help DYC correct inaccurate reports in the media by allowing the agency to release information when it is to correct errors.
The Gazette requested copies of incident reports from the Department of Youth Corrections in July 2014 specifically asking that the identities of juveniles be redacted, but that request was denied citing a state law that makes “all records prepared by the Colorado Department of Human Services Division of Youth Corrections privileged and confidential.”
In the 2013-14 fiscal year, there were 23 assaults of the most severe rating that caused or attempted to cause serious injury to either students or staff, according to data the Division of Youth Services provided to lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee.
Over the course of the year, there were 139 fights and assaults of varying degrees of severity.
None of the reports detailing those incidents are available for public scrutiny.
Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, is the Senate sponsor of the bill and said last summer he struggled to get information out of the department about what was occurring at Spring Creek.
“We are trying to protect individual privacy rights,” Lambert said, noting the bill ensures juveniles will remain anonymous in the reports. “But we couldn’t get any information out of youth corrections at all, and that was just way beyond the scope of privacy. We just can’t manage what you’re doing if you try to shut everybody out of the information - especially the legislature. The public has a right to know this, too. If teachers are being harassed and things like that in the facilities, and fights breaking out on a regular basis or state employees are being assaulted, it’s good to know that.”
An amendment to the bill Wednesday would prevent it from applying retroactively and would only be for critical incidents moving forward. Lee said he wishes the bill were more broad, but said the amendment was a compromise with the state agency.
Werthwein took over as acting director of the division six months ago. Al Estrada served as the head of the agency for only a few months in 2014 after long-time director John Gomez retired. A full-time director, Chuck Parkins, will take over in mid-march.
Werthwein said he has seen improvements at Spring Creek and a detailed plan for improvement has been fully implemented.
The agency temporarily removed a number of committed youth from the facility in response to safety concerns, but Werthwein said the facility is now open for full capacity. Of 29 beds for committed youth, 21 are filled. There are also 51 beds for detained youth and 34 of those are filled with recently arrested juveniles who will stay a short time.
The agency also received funding for 75 additional staff members, of which 53 just finished training. He said that is important for working with those who have anger management or behavioral health issues and need one-on-one attention.
Werthwein also said the education for the youth is on track under the new leadership of Harrison School District 2.
“When they leave us they still have another 60 years of life, and we want to set them up to be successful for life,” Werthwein said.