Sunday, October 12, 2003

Top officials tied to teen's alleged abuse

By GREGORY D. KESICH, Portland Press Herald Writer

A teenager was locked in solitary confinement and shackled at the Maine Youth Center for far longer than the center's own policies allowed - and top officials knew all about it, court records show.

Documents made public in a pending lawsuit show that the people responsible for overseeing the former youth center in the 1990s approved of procedures that exceeded their own rules for using force, physical restraint and isolation. Some of those officials now run the Long Creek Youth Center in South Portland, southern Maine's new juvenile corrections facility.

In one instance, a teenager identified in court documents as Michael T. was held in a solitary confinement-type cell for 87 days - far exceeding the youth center's 72-hour maximum policy. He was also tied down in restraints for as long as 49 hours, exceeding the youth center's 30-minute maximum.

Officials who signed off on the measures include Long Creek Superintendent Lars Olsen, Deputy Superintendent Richard Lancaster and senior psychologist Barbara Heath, court records show.

Olsen declined to comment, referring questions to Long Creek spokesman James McManus. McManus said that practices at the new facility, which opened last year, are different from those of the old youth center. There is no isolation unit at Long Creek, he said, and restraint is used only for short time periods, if at all.

"Restraint is now measured by minutes," not hours or days, McManus said.

He referred additional questions to Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Department of Corrections. Lord said the Attorney General's Office had advised the department not to comment because of the pending lawsuit.

Olsen joined the youth center as acting superintendent in January 1998. He was not there during the first three years that Michael T. allegedly experienced the treatment described in the suit. After being named superintendent in June 1998, Olsen presided over ambitious reforms in juvenile corrections. Under former directors Richard Wyse and Lawrence Reid, the facility was plagued by overcrowding, poor staff morale and lack of funding.

Wyse and Reid, also named as defendants in the suit, no longer work for the state.

New buildings, services

In recent years, Maine's corrections department has spent $34 million on new buildings without isolation cells. The state has also increased the amount of mental health and education services it provides the children it houses.

But critics say the fact that many of the same people who approved the measures are still on the job shows that, despite the improvements, the abuses of the past could be repeated.

"The Legislature didn't clean house when this stuff came out, and the governor didn't provide anyone with a guarantee that it won't happen again," said Thomas Connolly, one of the lawyers representing Michael T. in his lawsuit. "These people have never been held accountable."

Allegations of overuse of restraints and isolation cells at the Maine Youth Center were first made in 1998, when Amnesty International started a letter-writing campaign against the institution. Those allegations were confirmed the following year, when a consultant hired by the state said the youth center had a "prison-like culture" that returned children to their communities in worse condition than when they came in.

In 2001, Michael T. sued 14 current and former state employees in Cumberland County Superior Court, claiming that his treatment at the Maine Youth Center resulted in permanent physical and emotional damage. Although he is now 21, his alleged mistreatment took place when he was a child, so the suit conceals his name.

Through his lawyer, he refused a request to be interviewed.

The Michael T. case is the first lawsuit to result from past conditions at the youth center. It is also the first time high-ranking corrections officials have been directly tied to alleged mistreatment.

According to the suit, Michael T. spent 29 months in the Maine Youth Center during five separate periods of commitment from 1995 to 1999. While there he spent days strapped in restraints, months locked in a tiny isolation cell and years at the mercy of abusive guards, the suit says. At the same time, the suit alleges, he was denied mental health treatment and an education for most of his formative teenage years.

Suing for mistreatment

As a result he now suffers from a "volatile combination" of mental disorders that permanently affect his ability to function, the suit contends. He is suing the state for mistreatment that, according to his lawyers, turned a troubled child into a damaged adult who will probably never be able to hold a job or lead a normal life.

"He is constantly anxious, constantly vigilant, and that's a lot to take," Connolly said. "He's not comfortable in his own skin. His mind is at war with itself."

Diane Sleek, an assistant attorney general, is representing the 12 current state employees on the list of 14 defendants named in the suit. She would not discuss the case.

"We have no comment on pending legislation; the documents speak for themselves," Sleek said.

Since the initial court complaint was filed, the state has been forced to turn over thousands of pages of records detailing Michael T.'s treatment during his commitments to the youth center. The documents are not a part of the public court file yet and are being held by Michael T.'s legal team. The leader of the team, juvenile justice advocate Edwin P. Chester, filed an amended complaint with the court last month, adding more details to the allegations about Michael T.'s treatment based on information the lawyers say was in the state documents.

In addition to those documents, the state produced hours of videotapes that show counselors at the youth center strapping Michael T. in restraints. The tapes have been impounded by Superior Court Justice Thomas Humphrey, but are described in the new court complaint.

In one tape, Michael T., then 17, looked past the guards who strapped him into a steel restraint chair and spoke directly into the camera. "I've been here since I was 13 years old. This is all I know how to do."

According to the complaint:

Olsen, who was superintendent of the youth center during three of Michael T.'s five commitments, personally ordered or approved confinement beyond 72 hours at least 27 times.

Lancaster, who had a variety of positions throughout all five of Michael T.'s commitments, personally authorized staff to restrain him on at least eight occasions, including one period that lasted for 28 hours and 35 minutes.

Heath, who was in charge of psychological treatment for the center, interviewed Michael T. when he had his arms and legs strapped down for 20 hours in a restraint which would last more than 27 hours. She also spoke with him twice later that month, during a restraint that lasted for 49 hours.

In both of those cases Heath allowed the restraint to continue, even though the records indicate that Michael T. was quiet and under control and no longer in need of protection from himself, the lawsuit alleges.

Policies defended

In court papers, corrections officials have asserted that their policies allowed the maximum restraints and isolation times to be exceeded, but the suit charges that those procedures were not followed in Michael T.'s case. So far, however, the state's defense has focused less on disputing the facts of the case than on legal technicalities.

Sleek, the assistant attorney general, has filed a motion to dismiss the suit, claiming that even if the allegations are true, the employees are protected from legal action because they were following the common practice of the time.

She also argues that denial of treatment and education services should be dismissed, because they are not rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

A victory for Michael T. in this case could affect the more than 200 minors who have been sent to Maine's two juvenile detention facilities by making it illegal to deny treatment and education to them, said Connolly, one of his lawyers.

"The government is saying that there is no right to treatment, so this case had enormous precedential value," Connolly said.

The motion to dismiss will be the subject of a hearing later this year. If the lawsuit goes forward, it is scheduled for trial in February.

Night in jail at age 12

According to the complaint, Michael T., the son of a single mother from Portland, first became involved with the judicial system when he was 12 after fighting with his sister. She tried to take a razor away from him and he slashed her arm. He was arrested and spent the night in jail.

By the time he was 13 he had developed a reputation for fighting in his neighborhood and school. After a confrontation in which he threatened the school principal, he was arrested again and was sent to the youth center for the first of five commitments over the next four years.

The complaint alleges that he arrived at the youth center with a number of problems, including attention deficit disorder, and had already threatened to commit suicide.

But in her initial review of him, Heath determined that he was not mentally ill and said his problems were "behavioral."

Early in his first incarceration, Michael T. was sent to the "Intensive Care Unit," a complex of locked 6-by-8-foot concrete cells, with a steel toilet and sink, and a tile shelf with a thin mattress to serve as a bed. He gradually spent more time in isolation than out, and the ICU became his home.

Periods of that time were spent in "mechanical restraints," which ranged from plastic handcuffs that chafed the skin to leather bindings that fastened the wrists and ankles to a waist belt. During his periods of confinement, a steel and plastic restraint chair with nylon straps was introduced.

Diane Schetky, a psychiatrist hired by Michael T. to evaluate his mental state, wrote in a report filed in court that excessive restraint and isolation made Michael T.'s behavior worse.

"He appears to have received almost no care or developed any meaningful human relationships while there," she wrote. "His inner world was chaotic and his behavior reflected this."

While in isolation, Michael T. joined a group of inmates who cut themselves. Using a metal screw or broken piece of tile, he would gouge his skin deeply enough to require stitches. That would mean a trip to the hospital and relief from isolation. It also meant an extension of his time in the ICU when he got back.

"It was the last form of rebellion," Connolly said. "It's like a child that cries for the parents' attention. It eventually becomes an addiction."

The court complaint charges that youth center officials treated the cutting as a disciplinary issue, not a sign of mental illness. Cutting, head-banging and attempts to commit suicide or escape were treated with stricter and stricter discipline, the suit alleges.

"It appears that line staff had very little leadership from the top in trying to figure out how best to handle Michael and were often left to their own devices or protocols that did not work with him," Schetky wrote.

The result of the isolation, in Schetky's view, was a worsening of his mental state. "He feels fearful all of the time," she wrote. "He feels like he is in a battle, mouths off easily and does not know how to handle conflict."

In the years since public attention was drawn to the youth center over treatment conditions there, the facility has seen an influx of new managers, including former Augusta Mental Health Institute Superintendent Rod Bouffard, and a dramatic change in how mental health problems are identified and addressed.

The new Long Creek Youth Development Center has gone from six hours of psychological services a week to a full-time clinic. Two full-time caseworkers from the Department of Mental Health are assigned to the center, and the state has a contract for substance abuse and other treatment programs.

"Every single child has an individualized program designed on a case-by-case, needs-based basis," Long Creek spokesman McManus said. "Very complicated, damaged children can come here, but we try to be active to help shape lives so that they can move forward."

Dan Reardon, a longtime volunteer at the former youth center, said abuses of restraint and isolation are not taking place at the new facility, but it still requires the same level of public scrutiny that led to recent reforms.

"I think the problem was leadership," Reardon said of the old youth center. "No line staff member wants to go to work and abuse kids. The question is, did their leaders put other kinds of resources in their hands to deal with these problems?"

Staff Writer Gregory D. Kesich can be contacted at 791-6336 or at:

gkesich@pressherald.com

Copyright 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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