The Washington Post (4/16/20) David Montgomery and Richard A. Webster:
Errollyn Gillett’s son is scheduled to be released from juvenile detention in November, but Gillett believes he and dozens of others locked up with him should be released now. Their health depends on it, she says.
“He’s small for his age and gets sick easily, and with the virus going around . . . this is really hurting and stressing me out,” Gillett said. Until she hears his voice in their weekly calls, “I don’t know if he’s sick or anything.”
Of the states reporting such data, Connecticut has the next highest number of infections — seven, according to Josh Rovner, senior advocacy associate at the Sentencing Project, a national criminal justice reform group that has compiled the figures from official reports and media accounts.
Advocates for incarcerated youths say the lack of statistics for all 50 states may conceal a more widespread national problem. Public defenders and judges in several states are prodding corrections officials and courts to focus on protecting incarcerated children from the virus by placing fewer in detention and releasing some who are already there.
The first three cases in Louisiana’s secure youth detention and care facilities were reported in late March. By April 3 there were nine, and by Thursday the number had tripled. The sudden rise has left anxious parents scrambling for more information and advocates calling for the state to immediately release medically vulnerable youth and those nearing the end of their sentences.
“Parents are terrified their children will die in prison,” said Gina Womack, executive director of Family and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children.
“With this virus thing going on, they’re trying to see if he can come home earlier,” Gillett said of her son, who she said was convicted of a nonviolent crime. “But nobody’s cooperating.”
People younger than 18 are less likely than adults to experience severe symptoms from a coronavirus infection, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fewer than 2 percent of confirmed cases in the United States have been in children.
E. Dustin Bickham, Louisiana’s interim deputy secretary for the Office of Juvenile Justice, said in an interview that none of the infected youths in the detention facilities has had to be hospitalized, and that 14 of the 27 who tested positive in secure detention have recovered. One of the four who were ill in the group homes has recovered.
Edwards didn’t answer the letter, said Renée Slajda, communications director for the children’s rights center. However, at a news briefing Wednesday devoted mainly to other virus-related subjects, Edwards said the state is coordinating with local courts on the “possibility” of granting extended furloughs to seven young people in secure detention who have chronic medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus.
That falls short of what advocates have called for.
Earlier this week, Edwards announced the formation of a review panel to consider furloughing up to 1,200 adult inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses with less than six months left on their sentences. They would be confined to their homes with ankle monitors. There have been 78 positive cases and no deaths among adult inmates in the state. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections also reported 60 infections and one death among corrections staff.
Bickham, the interim deputy secretary for juvenile justice, said mitigation measures he has instituted appear to be curbing the spread of the virus. There have been no new cases for the past several days, he said.
“I’m confident with how we are handling the situation,” Bickham said.
He said he does not know how the virus entered the juvenile detention system.
Bickham questions whether Louisiana’s infection rate in youth detention facilities is actually higher than that of other states, since it’s unclear how much testing other states conduct and how they report their data. Rovner, the advocate compiling the comparative statistics, credited Louisiana with better reporting than most states. Bickham’s office posts online daily updates on the number of cases at each facility.
But some other states are more actively trying to reduce the number of people in detention to prevent the virus’s spread.
Connecticut officials have been working to remove as many children as possible, said Cathy Foley Geib, deputy director of the judicial branch that runs the Connecticut’s two detention centers. Every week, judges review the cases of pretrial juveniles via teleconference, while other officials meet to determine whether those youths convicted of crimes can be sent home or to lower-security facilities. The combined population at the state’s two detention centers was 47 as of Thursday, down from 86 on March 1, Foley Geib said.
“We try to educate people that if you have a kid who might not be following all the rules in the community, does the response have to be to try and get them locked up?” Foley Geib said. “He could be bringing in something from the community into the detention center. Or he might have underlying issues where if he remained home, they might be better managed there.”
Of the seven youths who tested positive in Connecticut, one boy who suffers from asthma had to be hospitalized, she said.
Advocates in Maryland, California and other states have gone to court to try to force changes that would reduce the numbers of children in detention during the pandemic. Maryland’s highest court ordered judges to look for alternatives to locking up juvenile offenders and to regularly review detention orders until the pandemic passes.
In early April, Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette J. Johnson urged judges in juvenile cases to consider whether detention is necessary for minor crimes and to try to release nonviolent young offenders or those with less than 90 days left in custody.
Yet judges seem to not be following Johnson’s advice, Slajda said: “We have not seen that effort on a large scale, and in New Orleans we haven’t seen it at all.”
One consequence of mitigation measures at the facilities is that educational courses, jobs and other activities have been suspended. So young people are confined to their dormitories for 23 hours a day, including meals, said the mother of a 20-year-old who has been in detention since he was 16.
“You can’t really social-distance inside of a dorm room,” which her son shares with seven others, the mother said. She asked that her name not be used to protect her son’s privacy.
The mother worries about her son catching the virus from a staff member — “It’s a little bit scary not knowing who they’ve been around” — or from another child.
Her son is months away from his release date. Because of good behavior and so much time served, he was recently home on a temporary furlough — but the state has opposed her lawyer’s attempts to obtain another furlough to avoid the chance of infection while in detention, she said.
Youths are permitted two free phone calls per week, and can pay for more. Visits to the detention facilities have been halted since the beginning of the pandemic, but Bickham said he is setting up video visits via Zoom as soon as this week.
A New Orleans mother said she spoke on Wednesday with her 16-year-old daughter in detention.
“She told me she learned the Bible real good while she’s been in there. She said, ‘God got me,’ ” the mother said, pausing briefly to stop from crying. “Y’all need to let these kids out. Even if they have to put them on the ankle monitor, instead of them of being in that place dealing with this on their own.”
Read the original story in The Washington Post here.