June 5, 2007
This story appears in this week's print edition of the Jackson Free Press.
Eight adolescent girls were shackled, some of them for more than a week, at Columbia Training School because another student said they planned to escape. The girls suffered bruises from tripping in the shackles, along with blisters and cuts to their feet and ankles.
Five girls were reportedly shackled from May 17 to May 31, when the student who said they planned to escape admitted she'd fabricated the allegation, according to confidential interviews conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The girls were forced to wear the shackles 12 hours a day and were only freed when they slept.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services has launched a formal investigation. In a statement released last Friday, DHS Executive Director Don Taylor said that he had suspended some Columbia administrators.
"f these allegations are true," Taylor said in the statement, "we must consider all possible solutions that will prevent this type of mistreatment in the future, including potentially closing training school facilities."
Although he pledged a full investigation, Taylor said nothing about how long the girls were shackled, and he downplayed harm to the girls. "While no serious injuries are asserted in this case, the affected juveniles are receiving medical attention," he said.
A June 4 letter (PDF, 1.9 MB) sent to DHS by SPLC attorney Sheila Bedi painted a starker picture. The letter describes first-hand accounts of injuries, some of which were allegedly photographed by a school nurse. Nearly a week after the incident, girls still had scabs and bruises on their ankles, Bedi told the Jackson Free Press.
DHS Deputy Administrator for Operations Mark Smith said that he could not disclose how many administrators had been suspended or comment on any other aspect of abuse at Columbia. Bedi said she believed that two administrators were suspended, but many staff members should be held responsible.
"The staff at these training schools are mandatory reporters of child abuse, so the fact that this could go on for a week and staff not report it reflects the cultural problems inside these facilities," she said.
In confidential interviews with the SPLC, girls described a wide range of other abuses by staff at Columbia. They said that staff keep the lights on in their sleeping quarters all night, causing sleep deprivation.
Several girls in the Observational Management Unit, a secure facility where girls who might harm themselves are housed, reportedly attempted suicide by slicing their wrists, some with concrete, others with glass. Girls placed on suicide watch sometimes go days without receiving mental health care, and they are not allowed to file abuse grievances against staff, the SPLC reported. Many girls do not use the grievance process at all because counselors allow others girls to read the grievances.
Girls report that staff yell "constantly," using profanity and calling them names. Several girls report that they are denied contact with their families when their counselors are on leave.
Health care at the school is in disarray. In one of the more disturbing allegations, one girl reported that she was sexually assaulted by three other students but not examined by medical staff for three days. She was never taken to the hospital. The student "has not spoken to her mother in many weeks because (school staff) told her it was better if her mother didn't know what had happened to her," the SPLC letter stated.
The training schools have operated under a consent decree with the Department of Justice since 2005, when the state settled lawsuits detailing widespread physical abuse of students. Girls as young as 10 were stripped and shackled in a "Dark Room" at Columbia for days at a time, and students were hog-tied, shackled to poles and forced to eat their own vomit, among many other abuses.
Under the consent decree, Joyce Burrell, a court-appointed monitor, has issued quarterly reports on reforms at the schools that have documented a litany of failures. In her last report, Burrell said that reforms at the schools have stalled, and she expressed grave concerns about inadequate health care and suicide prevention. Burrell complained that DHS and "the state leadership team" have not made reforming the schools a priority.
Bedi said that while she is encouraged that DHS has responded rapidly, these are the same sorts of violations that the federal government found in 2003. "I believe it's reflective of the culture in these facilities," she said. "It's a culture where we treat children as criminals, and we don't value them. In many ways, they've given up on rehabilitating these kids. It's all about control."
Bedi said that the training schools are dangerous to children and a terrible waste of resources. "It would be a shame if this put the state in some sort of prolonged litigation, when the answer just seems incredibly clear. The answer is to close Columbia," she said.
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