Staff Watches Over Empty Juvenile Detention Facility

Talk about waste in the government of New York.  Throwing 3 million dollars out the window should hurt, even for New York. Just think about all the other things that the money could be used for. This money is being spent so union employees wouldn't have to be transferred to another facility.

Here are some excerpts from the article

The sprawling campus north of Albany is empty except for 25 to 30 staffers. Each employee collects almost $90,000 a year with benefits.

The state tried to shut Tryon down. It moved young people to other facilities. But the New York law requiring union members at juvenile detention centers and prisons to get a year's notice kept it open. Now the empty detention center costs taxpayers $3 million year.

Throwing money away like this for the cause of not inconveniencing union employees is just wrong.  New Yorkers should be upset.  Besides the wages that they are having to pay how much does it cost New York State as well as the county of Fulton to keep the heat on for these union employees?  How much does it cost for the upkeep the buildings, the grounds clean, snow removal and trash pick up?

There are other staffing concerns. Only 661 juveniles are in the state system, and yet 2,134 state employees watch over them. The cost is huge: $228,000 a year to keep a kid in a secure facility and $298,000 in a non-secure facility. Cities and counties pay half.

Right now it costs $169 million to run these facilities and New York City pays a big share of that cost- a share that city officials like Probation Commission Vincent Schiraldi want to cut down.

Lawsuit Alleges Barbaric Conditions and Abuse Of Teens

Once again, a fine example of what our tax dollars are buying. How many children must we pay to damage? In our eagerness to provide a 'safe world' we have gone overboard on how harshly we punish children for petty, non-violent crimes. To allow our government to turn over the care of our children over to corporations who profit from 'punishing' them is not only morally reprehensible, it is waste of our tax dollars. 

Mandatory sentencing laws have removed all common sense from our juvenile justice system and the end result is that we are allowing corporations to breed more violent offenders to release back into society. The earlier a child is thrown in to detention, the higher the odds they will reoffend. When we allow children and teens to suffer abuse, the corporations responsible for the abuse (and hence, creating angry, violent young adults) to create 'repeat customers' for life and guarantee their profits. 

We need to bring back some common sense in this country and a good place to start would be helping our children and put an end to aiding corporations from over-punishing them for profit.

The Dispatch 

Lawsuit: 'Barbaric' conditions at Miss. youth correctional facility
The Associated Press
November 16, 2010 2:01:00 PM 

Excerpt - "The suit, which seeks class action status, names the Walnut Grove Correctional Authority, the GEO Group, Inc., which is contracted to operate the facility; Health Assurance, LLC; Walter Tripp, the facility's warden; Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps and Mississippi Education Superintendent Tom Burnham.

GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Fla., and the agency officials declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday.

The complaint details allegations of inmates stripped naked and held in isolation weeks at a time; sick inmates denied proper health care and prison guards who were complicit in inmate fights that resulted in stab wounds and severe beatings, including one that left an inmate with permanent brain damage.

The suit also claimed handcuffed youth were kicked and punched by guards, while others secured in their cells were sprayed with chemical restraints.

The facility, which opened in 2001, is located in Leake County and houses some 1,200 inmates aged 13-22. More than half of the inmates are incarcerated for committing nonviolent offenses, the complaint states.

The complaint states that courts often require youth sentenced to the facility to complete their education while incarcerated, but most youth are denied access to basic education.

The suit said under staffing at the prison is one of the main problems, and cited reports from the Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review and the MDOC Corrections Auditor that have also raised concerns about the issue.

Taxpayers pay the Walnut Grove Correctional Authority $14 million each year to operate the prison, according to the complaint. The suit alleges that in many parts of the prison only one guard is assigned to a zone, which could hold as many as 60 inmates.

"It has a strong financial incentive to imprison as many youth as possible on the cheap," Bedi said."

Full Article On The Dispatch

More GEO Group Complaints and Wrongdoings

Florida State-Funded, For-Profit Juvenile Prison Sued For Assault

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) took aim at a Florida state-funded, for-profit juvenile prison after allegations of horrific conditions surfaced. According to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of children held at Thompson Academy in Broward County, Florida, the staff at Thompson Academy routinely brutalized, chocked and slammed the children into walls. At least one was sexually assaulted and after the abuse was reported administrations continued to allow the staff member to have contact with the child, resulting in a second sexual assault.

When the allegations of abuse first surfaced members of the SPLC went to interview children but Youth Services International, Inc., the company which operates the facility, prevented the children from having access to the attorneys. The children were also not allowed to have confidential phone calls with their attorneys and were later questioned about any meetings that did take place by the Academy's director and other staff. Many were coerced into signing statements ending or declining representation by the SPLC.

The allegations in the lawsuit go far beyond even these horror stories. Children live in hot and moldy living units that lack air conditioning. Some children were even forced to sleep on dirty floors of other units after becoming ill.