The Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) has resorted to the unwarranted seclusion of minors and the use of restrictive disciplinary techniques to compensate for staff shortages, according to a state inspection report released last week.
The annual audit found a series of rights violations affecting troubled teens housed in the downtown Minneapolis facility as they await trial or placement in a secure residential treatment center, including frequent isolation and improper wellness checks.
A widespread review of video footage, personnel reports and inspector observations discovered that the JDC locked children in their rooms for long stretches, canceling recreation time and outreach programming, because of staffing shortages rather than behavioral issues. The inspection revealed multiple occasions when teens were confined without cause, even when several correctional officers were sitting in a nearby office.
If minors filed a formal grievance about that treatment, their complaints often went unanswered. One in four didn’t get a response within the required five-day window — a repeated rule violation by the JDC that has only worsened since an inspection last fall.
The report confirms longstanding allegations by attorneys and their young clients, who have testified in court hearings that the bleak conditions inside the detention facility damaged their mental and physical health. Some reported languishing in their cells for up to 16 hours a day, barring them from parental visitation or phone calls.
“The JDC is not a rehabilitative or therapeutic environment, so you already have kids under an enormous amount of stress,” said public defender Tracy Reid. “They’re not getting appropriate psychological care that a person would need to endure those conditions. So we’re seeing increased violence by the children.”
For months, Reid has sought records outlining how often youths were being locked in their cells and for what length of time. Eventually, she obtained a court order, which acknowledges that the JDC does not specifically track that information. But over a seven-week period, the document noted, there were only five days where programming wasn’t modified for the entire building.
“If the staffing shortage is this bad, they need to treat it as an emergency to fix it,” Reid said, accusing the facility of confining children for “egregiously long periods of time” simply for the convenience of the adults tasked with their care.
