Saturday, October 18, 2003

EDITORIAL: Investigation of youth center should be independent

No state facility - particularly one that houses people under 18 - should have drawn the attention of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

Yet that's exactly what happened in 1998 when the organization launched a letter-writing campaign against the former Maine Youth Center, a juvenile corrections facility that was replaced by the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland in 2002. The organization charged that the center overused restraints and isolation cells, and an independent consultant that the state hired said the facility had a "prison-like culture."

The reverberations from these allegations are still echoing. A lawsuit filed on behalf of Michael T., a former inmate who is now 21, details horrifying violations of human rights and ethical violations during five separate periods when he was incarcerated in the facility between 1995 and 1999.

What makes the allegations even more astounding is that the suit claims senior officials at the facility approved of treatment that violated the facility's own policies.

Gov. Baldacci has rightly acted quickly, launching an investigation into the matter. The problem, though, is that he put Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson in charge of the investigation, and Magnusson is one of the defendants in the lawsuit.

MICHAEL T.'S pending lawsuit, filed in 2001 in Cumberland County Superior Court, says that he was held for 87 days in a solitary confinement cell, when the youth center's maximum limit was 72 hours. That's 87 days. Nearly three months, when the limit was three days.

He also was tied down in restraints for periods far longer than the youth center's 30-minute limit on numerous occasions, the complaint said. In one case - and there were dozens - he was restrained for more than 49 hours.

Who deemed this acceptable?

The complaint, filed against 14 current and former state employees, alleges that senior staff, including Long Creek Superintendent Lars Olsen, Deputy Superintendent Robert Lancaster and senior psychologist Barbara Heath, personally authorized or approved of such measures.

Magnusson is named in the suit because he is the head of the Maine Department of Corrections department and held that post at the time the alleged abuse took place.

Michael T. entered the facility for the first time at age 13 after a confrontation with his school principal. He was prone to fighting and had several problems including attention deficit disorder, but his problems were determined behavioral and not due to mental illness.

Now, though, things are different.

Michael T.'s lawyers allege that the treatment he received during the next four years resulted in permanent emotional and physical damage - such that he suffers from a "volatile combination" of disorders - that will impair his ability to live a normal life.

That's not surprising. If the allegations are true, there's no possible way anyone subjected to such treatment would leave the facility better than when he or she had gone in. What allegedly happened to Michael T. was a travesty and there should be serious recriminations. There's absolutely no excuse for such abusive acts and they should be treated as such.

The state claims that even if the allegations are true the youth center staff was merely following the common practice at the time. If that's the case, then there should be many more lawsuits ahead.

GOV. BALDACCI HAS ordered Magnusson and Alan Stearns, a top advisor, to thoroughly examine the facts of the case and report their findings back to him. The men are supposed to find out what happened and why, and what should happen next.

The governor is clearly wrong in his choice of investigators. The fact that the Department of Corrections is the target of the lawsuit is reason enough to shift responsibility for the investigation elsewhere. That Magnusson's name is on the lawsuit should have been a clear indicator to the governor that the commissioner should have been left out of it.

This matter would be better handled by the Attorney General's Office, or by an independent investigator. The Legislature, too, should delve into this horrific case and monitor the investigation closely.

THE STATE HAS made numerous changes to the youth center since Michael T.'s periods of incarceration at the facility. The facility was replaced with the $34 million Long Creek, which offers better mental health services and education. There is no isolation unit at the new facility. Restraint is used in terms of minutes, not hours and certainly not days.

There are individual rehabilitation plans for young people and substance abuse programs are in place. That sounds more like a facility working to rehabilitate youths rather than ruin their lives.

However, it's apparent that problems remain. Next week, the union workers at the center - who are trying to negotiate a contract - plan to take a vote of no confidence against the facility's senior managers, citing poor working conditions and low morale.

That certainly doesn't make for an ideal environment in which to work with troubled youth, who have little other choice but to rely on youth center staffers for their well-being. Though things have improved considerably since the days when Michael T. was housed in the facility, it's clear that youths are currently in the hands of people who are not happy.

The union workers might have pointed their fingers in the right place. If Olsen and his senior staff did, indeed, allow these events to occur, then he should be fired, without severance and without the option to resign.

Approving such barbaric and inhumane treatment of an underage person is absolutely unacceptable, and such approval does not come from a person who is competent to lead such a facility.

An investigation - one not conducted by the agency in which the problems occurred, and certainly not by someone named in the lawsuit - should determine if that's what happened in this tragic case.

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