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Forbes Juvenile Attention Facility, Topeka, Kansas
October
18, 2009 Topeka Capital-Journal
Insufficient staff numbers and inadequate room checks by a Topeka juvenile
residential center opened the door for a 12-year-old boy to be repeatedly
raped by his roommate over three days in January 2008, a civil lawsuit
claims. "The rape, sodomy, sexual assault and sexual battery could not
have happened if the boys or men were properly supervised," reads the
suit. The suit, filed last year in Shawnee County District Court against
the owners of Forbes Juvenile Attention Facility, isn't the only place to
find concerns about the welfare of residents of the facility. Other issues
related to the treatment of residents have been raised in inspection
reports, internal memos and the words of former FJAC workers. Allegations
of racial discrimination and questions about how FJAC administrators notify
authorities of alleged abuse also have been raised. The problems, former
staffers say, allowed sexual misconduct to go unnoticed. "The last
couple months before I left, it was chaos," said Clarence Tyson, a
shift supervisor who resigned in late 2008 after seven years at FJAC. The
allegations are just that -- allegations, the FJAC administration said.
Terry Campbell, executive vice president for Clarence M. Kelley Juvenile
Justice Resources, which owns FJAC, said a handful of unhappy workers have
already made similar claims to other governmental agencies. "I'm sure
SRS has received them, KDHE has received them, JJA has received them, the
governor has probably received them," Campbell said. "It's
because we've got disgruntled staff, former employees. They're not the
majority of the professional staff that we have." Campbell said there
have been only six reports of sexual misconduct at FJAC since 2007, and
only two were sexual assaults. FJAC, located at Forbes Field at 6700 S.W.
Topeka Blvd., is a privately run youth residential center, a nonsecure group home for male juvenile offenders that
houses up to 56 youths ages 12 to 17. The offenders sent to FJAC aren't the
most dangerous in the juvenile system, thus one reason why it isn't a
locked facility. Since a new administration took over at FJAC in late 2007,
the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has investigated 20
complaints there. That is more than any of the 29 similar facilities
contracting with the state except for one -- Camelot Lakeside in Goddard,
which has had 26 such complaints. Many of the complaints against FJAC
allege insufficient staffing led to the incidents. And at least six workers
-- five former and one current -- have filed state or federal
discrimination suits in 2009. In addition to alleging black workers were
treated differently, some of the suits say employees feared retaliation for
reporting alleged abuse to authorities as required by regulations and law.
Campbell points out most allegations by the former employees and
allegations investigated by KDHE couldn't be substantiated. Ward Loyd, chairman of the Kansas Advisory Group on Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said he hadn't heard of the allegations
but said "where's there's smoke, there's usually fire."
"It's certainly unfortunate to hear that we've got these types of
allegations with any Kansas facility," he said. "The whole issue
with having them placed in these kinds of facilities is to provide for
their needs, not to complicate them." Civil suit -The 12-year-old
plaintiff in the current civil suit against FJAC was referred to the
facility in late 2007 or early 2008 by case manager Kenyetta
Byrd. Soon after, an FJAC worker contacted Byrd concerned about the boy's
small size. According to a February 2008 report by the Juvenile Justice
Authority's inspector general on the incident, the caller told Byrd the boy
would be "eaten alive." "They didn't even have clothes small
enough to fit him," said Toni Wash, a drug and alcohol counselor who
worked at FJAC from late 2007 to late 2008. "Everyone was asking why
he was there." Campbell said he wouldn't comment on any incident under
litigation. In addition to the civil case against Kelley Juvenile Detention
Services, the roommate suspected of raping the 12-year-old is facing
criminal sodomy charges in juvenile court. Immediately after Byrd got the
alarming call from the FJAC worker, another case coordinator called and
told her to disregard the previous caller. The boy was then placed at FJAC.
The alleged rape and sodomy occurred from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24, 2008, and as
soon as FJAC learned about it, officials there contacted authorities. The
lawsuit claims FJAC workers didn't conduct room checks every 15 minutes as
their policy mandated. The inspector general's report says room-check logs
contained blanket statements about the whole floor without specific mention
of individual room checks. In an e-mail to Campbell on Feb. 14, 2008,
Kelley administrator Scott Henricks conceded some
fault. "The cause of the alleged incident can partially be attributed
to staff error," he wrote. In its court response, however, FJAC flatly
denied the allegations of improper staff work. JJA commissioner Russ
Jennings said:, "Is there a concern that
staff aren't checking rooms regularly? Yes, there certainly is." Mona
Brown, a floor staffer for more than a year until she was fired in January,
said she wasn't surprised something happened. "The staff ratio just
wasn't there," she said. "That is the thing that sets it up for
things to happen."
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