months who failed to meet state requirements, in many cases because of
histories of crimes or drug abuse, a Sun review has found.
The unqualified workers were discovered after the state began running the
troubled juvenile detention center April 1, when its contract with a private
operator expired.
The school, which houses 188 juvenile offenders, has been beset by
violence, including abuse by staff. Recent incidents there have included a
fight in February involving four teen-agers and a staff member that sent two
youths to a hospital. The same month, The Sun reported that a Hickey youth was
assaulted by two staff members who held him in his room and repeatedly punched
him in the face.
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When it took over in April, the state asked all those employed at the
facility to re-apply for their jobs, and it began screening all 320 of them.
It soon learned that the contractor – Florida-based Correctional Services
Corp./Youth Services International – had hired workers the state considers
unfit.
“It’s my understanding there were people here who would not have passed
background checks,” said former Baltimore police officer Joseph Newman, a
Department of Juvenile Services consultant, in an interview yesterday. “There
were a number of people who did not meet state requirements and were not
offered contracts to work here.”
Of the 320 original workers, 260 chose to remain. Of the 60 who did not
stay, 40 “just didn’t meet our standards” because they failed background
checks or didn’t meet minimum education requirements, said Juvenile Services
spokeswoman LaWanda Edwards. She said the rest didn’t apply to be retained.
Although the school would not identify the workers who did not meet
standards or their positions, most Hickey employees work directly with the
juveniles.
After a civil rights investigation, the U.S. Justice Department said in a
report last month that it believed workers with felony convictions and
histories of using excessive force were being hired at Hickey and the
Cheltenham Youth Facility, another state-run detention center, in Prince
George’s County.
“Notably, we found several instances where we believe that staff with
either felony convictions or previous histories of excessive force in a
juvenile detention facility were involved in incidents of abuse,” the
department said in the report to the state last month.
But the report didn’t say how many workers might have been hired despite
criminal backgrounds. The state says it didn’t know the scope of the problem
until recently, after the contractor left.
A top Juvenile Services official the agency was dismayed to learn that so
many workers were improperly hired, especially since the department has made a
public priority of improving conditions at its eight detention centers. “We
certainly weren’t happy with this,” said Rudy Adams, a Juvenile Services
assistant secretary.
Inquiries to Correctional Services Corp./Youth Services International,
based in Sarasota, Fla., were referred yesterday to Eric Gallon in the
division that handles juvenile facilities. Gallon was unavailable for comment.
Hickey, in northeastern Baltimore County near Loch Raven Reservoir, opened
in 1850 as the House of Refuge. It houses some of the state’s most serious
juvenile offenders. Some youths are in detention awaiting court dates, while
others have been committed there by judges.
Attracting qualified youth workers has been a persistent problem at
Maryland’s juvenile detention centers. The state pays entry-level youth
supervisors between $20,000 and $25,000 – significantly less than their
counterparts in surrounding states.
At Hickey, the staff had been earning even less under the private
contractor – a little more than $19,000, Adams said.
“It’s my understanding the pay was increased as much as $1,800 to $2,400
for entry-level people” when the state took over, Newman said.
The state plans to run Hickey temporarily while it hires a new private
operator in the next several months. In the interim, workers are being treated
as contract employees and are not receiving health benefits.
When it took over, the state found other problems at Hickey besides the
staff. In one dormitory, 24 of 30 locks on residents’ doors were broken,
Newman said. Many of the buildings were dirty and had graffiti.