By Liz Sawyer, Christopher Magan
Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS — Operators of the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) have agreed to consolidate housing units, create a new programming schedule and retrain correctional officers in an effort to satisfy state regulators, who rebuked the downtown facility last month for violating resident rights.
The changes in response to a scathing inspection report that accused the center of placing minors in seclusion without good reason to compensate for ongoing staff shortages. An annual audit by the Department of Corrections found that teens were frequently locked in their rooms for long stretches, due to a lack of personnel rather than bad behavior.
In response, county officials vowed to bolster staffing and retrain all officers tasked with performing wellness checks. Last week, the facility closed its “orientation mod,” typically reserved for new admissions, and combined male age groups to reduce the number of living units and provide heightened supervision.
The moves, including a new schedule, are expected to help prevent the undue cancellation of recreation, parent visits and other privileges to children in their custody.
“[Previous] staffing levels did not allow for all units to run programming simultaneously while having sufficient staff available to respond to incidents and emergencies in the building,” JDC Superintendent Dana Swayze wrote in a seven-page letter to state inspectors. “Programming is only canceled on an as-needed basis based on the JDC’s ability to safely accommodate [it].”
In a Dec. 4 email to the County Board, Mary Ellen Heng, acting director of Hennepin’s Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation, assured elected officials that corrective actions had begun, but asserted that some of the report’s findings lacked context.
Heng pointed to a violation where teens were allegedly confined without cause, even when multiple correctional officers were sitting in a nearby office. She explained that, during the dates of the inspection earlier this fall, several officers observed in the office were still in training — and therefore not permitted to interact with the youths alone.
In the video below, Gordon Graham discusses the isolation of juvenile offenders and the importance of having a solid policy to guide correctional efforts.
She also contended that while programming has been modified by staffing limitations, “this additional room time is not reflective of punishment, disciplinary techniques, or restrictive procedures.”
“We have made every effort to ensure that residents in our care are engaged in meaningful programming and are receiving positive and proactive adult guidance, support, and supervision,” Heng wrote in an email obtained by the Star Tribune.
Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley expressed frustration by Heng’s defensiveness about the state report and questioned why county officials lacked a sense of urgency to find “tangible solutions.” She gave them a week to come up with a detailed plan to address the issues raised in the inspection.
“Real, substantive change needs to happen within the JDC or we need to shut it down,” she wrote in a fiery Dec. 7 email. “We are contributing to lifelong damage to the brains of young children by subjecting them to extended periods of solitude because we don’t have the staff.”
In an interview, Conley said she was disturbed by the report’s findings, especially since she had recently met with top county public safety staff to discuss the facility and none had mentioned the pending violations.
“It’s not something you want to learn about in the news media,” said Conley, who represents District 4, which covers much of Minneapolis, including the downtown detention center.
Conley described the practice of isolating kids as “cruel and unusual punishment” that needs to end.
“Anytime kids are left in their rooms for extended periods of time, as a means of discipline or because there is no staff, is unacceptable,” she said Thursday. “It is dangerous.”
Although Conley acknowledged it may take some time to phase out the use of seclusion, she hopes county officials will urgently work to examine the hiring and retention of staff to curb its reliance on such measures.
The county employs 69 full-time officers to staff the JDC, yet only 53 remain active due to medical leave or training restrictions. While state licensing requires the facility to maintain a 1-to-12 ratio of staff to minors, the JDC upholds a 1-8 ratio for compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
The three-story juvenile detention center is part of a larger $13 million complex on Park Avenue between S. 5th and 6th Streets in downtown Minneapolis that includes juvenile courts and offices. It has capacity for 87 beds; 25 teens are currently housed there.
Public defenders and their young clients have long complained about worsening conditions at the JDC, where they are temporarily housed as they await trial or placement in a secure residential treatment center.
Conley said she’s had concerns about the Juvenile Detention Center since she was sworn in for her first term in 2019 and toured the facility. She’s planning another visit to see how conditions have changed.
The rest of the County Board shares those concerns.
Earlier this fall, as pressure mounted to help treat kids with complex mental health needs who were languishing in emergency rooms and detention centers, Hennepin County fast-tracked the creation of a $15 million youth behavioral health crisis stabilization center in Minneapolis.
County commissioners unanimously signed off on the plan, which included a $7 million annual agreement for provider Nexus Family Healing to operate the 10- to 15-bed crisis residential program.
Rising youth crime and mental health challenges have remained persistent issues in Hennepin County in recent years. Commissioners played a key role in a 2023 legislative working group on how to best intervene with troubled youth, but lawmakers did not act on a list of their recommendations offered last session.
County officials continue lobbying the state Legislature to provide more local funding to address the growing mental health needs of young residents.
Last week, the County Board agreed to spend $5.3 million to move adult inmates out of the Hennepin County jail to comply with a state order mandating that Sheriff Dawanna Witt reduce the population. The body has yet to spend any money to improve the conditions inside the JDC.
Conley acknowledged that finding appropriate staffing was a major barrier — one that is increasingly difficult not just in Minnesota, but nationwide.
“It’s not easy to work as a juvenile corrections officer. They’re working with kids who have high needs, who may have done some really bad things. So that’s hard,” she said. “So how are we supporting our employees? What can we do to recruit and retain staff? I think the retention piece is really the tricky part. We need to be studying that.”
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