A new report by a disability rights group describes San Diego County juvenile halls as having an “atmosphere of violence and intimidation,” the result of over-reliance on pepper spray and physical force to bring youth under control.
The Sacramento-based Disability Rights California has been recognized by the state and federal governments as an advocate, and can inspect facilities that hold people with disabilities. The group inspected San Diego County’s facilities last year.
“Probation staff stated that pepper spray is routinely used and were nonchalant and unabashedly open about its use,” the report says.
Pepper spray was used 249 times at county youth facilities in 2015, according to records obtained by the news organization MuckRock. That’s up from 208 times in 2014, despite a waning inmate population.
County Probation Chief Mack Jenkins, whose department oversees juvenile detention, said there is no improper use of pepper spray against young charges.
“It’s a force option that’s used when necessary to protect youth and staff from an immediate threat,” he said. “This notion that pepper spray is used as a behavior management technique is flatly false.”
Five states, including California, allow staff to carry pepper spray in juvenile facilities, the report says. Rebecca Cervenak, an attorney for the advocacy group and the report’s author, said a number of counties have stopped using it.
“Many [counties] that we’ve talked to don’t use it because it has such a negative impact and creates such a culture of violence and fear,” Cervenak said.
Cervenak and an attorney from Berkeley-based Prison Law Office toured the county’s two largest juvenile detention centers in September and interviewed young wards. According to the report, released last week, some youth told Cervenak that staffers threatened they’d “soon have Taser guns, in addition to pepper spray.”
The report comes three months after the county agreed to a $1 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by the family of Rosemary Summers, a 16-year-old detainee who committed suicide in September 2013, and nearly two years after the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the county’s juvenile lock-ups based on reports about the use of pepper spray and solitary confinement.
Documented instances of pepper-spray used are categorized as “fight” — meaning guards used it to break up a fight — and “non-fight,” such when youths refuse to leave their cells.
Since the civil-rights complaint, Jenkins said, he’s personally reviewed all “non-fight” uses to make sure they are appropriate and within policy. As for Tasers, while it’s possible staff made that comment, he said, “there are absolutely no plans to introduce the use of Tasers into juvenile institutions in this county.”
Jenkins took issue with the fact that so much of the recent report relies on information provided by young detainees. While juveniles’ stories shouldn’t be discounted, he said, the report “really was based on what amounts to be unsubstantiated and unverified s.”
Cervenak said she found the youth credible and that the report gathered information from a number of sources, including lawyers, staff and families.
Something staff acknowledged, according to the report, is handcuffing youth who are threatening harm to themselves or others and placing them in safety cells — or “rubber rooms” as detainees called them — while still handcuffed. The rooms are described as bare with a hole in the middle of the floor for urinating and defecating.
“This practice is unusual and should be eliminated,” the report says.
Jenkins said youth aren’t handcuffed when they’re placed in the safety room, which is rarely used. According to the probation department, in 2015 the safety room was used two times at the two facilities the advocacy group inspected.
Cervenak said the detainees she interviewed complained of being hungry. They told her they weren’t getting enough food and were often denied second helpings as a group punishment, something that is prohibited under state regulations.
Jenkins said juvenile facilities undergo regular inspections that include making sure meals meet nutritional guidelines.
“We have not been found to be deficient in the traditional menu provided to the kids,” he said. “If the kids are complaining they’re hungry, that’s something we’d want to talk about with DRC. That’s imminently solvable.”
Jenkins said he’s also going to look into issues the report raised about the Kearny Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility not being accessible to handicapped youth. Currently, the facility’s only wheelchair-accessible bathroom is being used as a storage closet.
“We have the very same goal and interests,” Jenkins said. “We have the very same mandate. We take that mandate very seriously.”
Jenkins announced his retirement in November. His last day as probation chief will be Thursday. Cervenak said she has a meeting scheduled to go over the report with the new chief, Adolfo Gonzales, who starts Friday.
