PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Tracie Johnson, Philadelphia’s Youth Ombudsperson, says the city’s juvenile detention center overuses and misuses the seclusion of residents as a tool to maintain order at the facility.
Johnson says during in-person visits at Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center, she noticed lapses, like staff members not always “going to the door to put their eyes on the young people every five minutes,” a requirement under Chapter 3800, the state’s regulations for children in residential treatment, so she opened a complaint process for residents and requested the center’s seclusion logs. She found conflicts.
“We were concerned about the reliability, the accuracy of those logs to truthfully be able to tell us when and for how long young people were in seclusion and what was their true mental state at the time,” she said.
Residents described being in seclusion for days at a time — far more than the 8-hour limit.
Johnson also found the center’s seclusion policy outdated and its practices in violation of state regulation, including putting a resident in handcuffs while in seclusion.
“We’re not objecting to the use of seclusion as a tool to keep young people safe,” Johnson said, “it’s about the overuse of seclusion in a way that is not compliant with 3800 regulations.”
The Department of Human Services, which runs the center, disputes that it overuses seclusion but did make changes including updating its policy and retraining staff.