There was a 75 percent jump in the number of cases in which youths were placed in isolation each month at the District’s two juvenile detention centers after Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed a former prosecutor to head the city’s juvenile justice agency.
In the first six months of 2010, there was an average of four isolation cases per month at New Beginnings and the Youth Services Center, Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services officials confirmed. But in July, when Fenty fired the previous interim director of DYRS and appointed Robert Hildum as the new interim director, the instances of isolation skyrocketed to 20. It climbed again in August, when inmates were sent to their cells for isolated stays of up to 20 hours on 25 occasions.
The spike has youth advocates concerned that Hildum is directing the agency back to a time when it focused more on incarceration and less on treatment.
“It’s a dangerous practice,” Liz Ryan, head of Campaign for Youth Justice, told The Washington Examiner. “It should only be used in very extreme situations. It’s the kind of practice that human rights organizations condemn.”
Hildum has been reviewing the 900 DYRS cases, trying to determine whether some of the agency’s wards who have been placed in residential treatment programs should be sent to New Beginnings. Fenty fired Marc Schindler after a series of high-profile killings — including this year’s mass shooting on South Capitol Street and the shooting death of a District middle school principal — were allegedly committed by DYRS wards. It has been left to Hildum to find what DYRS critics describe as a better balance between residential treatment and internment.
Hildum told The Examiner on Thursday that youth are sent to stay alone in their cells only for “really serious incidents,” such as attacks on other inmates or staff. He, and Youth Services Center director Jeff McInnis, said the jump in youths being sent to isolation does not reflect a change in policy.
“The number of isolations per month often follows trends,” McInnis said. “One unruly kid in a facility can be isolated 10 times and each gets counted separately.”
Hildum said isolation only means being separated from other inmates. Staff is required to check on each isolated youth every 15 minutes, and the inmates also meet with case managers and write apology notes while stuck in their cells.
“It’s like a parent sending their unruly child to his room,” he said.
