Pennsylvania has agreed to monitoring of youth institutions to settle abuse allegations

Pennsylvania’s state-run Youth Development Centers will limit use of restraints and accept oversight by an independent monitor for at least a year to settle a long-standing lawsuit filed by youth advocates.

The settlement, finalized in March, resolves litigation filed in 2019 by Disability Rights Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization that has a federal mandate to advocate for people with disabilities. The complaint alleged widespread physical and emotional abuse of teens with disabilities, who account for an estimated 70% of those held at the state centers.

“Staff at the YDCs assault, provoke, intimidate, terrify, and humiliate youth with disabilities, stripping them of their right to rehabilitation,” the complaint alleged.

In particular, the nonprofit said, staff used restraints excessively, including as cover for assaults that left young people bruised and battered — in once case with a shattered orbital bone.

Under the settlement, staff at the YDCs will also be trained in how to de-escalate conflicts and when to safely deploy restraints. Moves like removing someone to a bedroom, not covered by security cameras, for the purpose of restraining them will be prohibited — and any restraints occurring off-camera will now trigger an investigation.

Kelly Darr, Disability Rights’ legal director, said the goal is lasting reform. She emphasized that the rules to be enforced under the agreement were already on the books in Pennsylvania.

“We hope this lawsuit will bring attention and enforcement back to those rules,” she said, “to … ensure that rules are being followed, and that kids are getting the treatment that they’re entitled to.”

A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) said in a statement that the agency is committed to meeting the needs of youth and complying with the agreement. According to the statement, DHS has already been working for several years to address the issues raised in the complaint, including expanding therapeutic programs and services.

An Inquirer investigation this year found that, despite a long history of institutional abuse scandals, Philadelphia sentences young people in the juvenile justice system to state facilities at a rate higher than any other big U.S. city or any county in Pennsylvania. Philly teens account for about 60% of the population in the YDCs.

The investigation documented more than 650 alleged abuse incidents at youth facilities run or licensed by DHS. More than 7,000 institutional abuse allegations were received in the last decade, but of those only 4% were substantiated.

The YDCs are high-security institutions for youth adjudicated delinquent. They house about 300 young people, ages 12 to 20, including about 200 from Philadelphia.

Staff at the facilities use the restraints more than a thousand times a year, according to the state Bureau of Juvenile Justice internal reports. But, unlike its publicly posted inspection reports on private and county-run facilities, the state largely does not disclose findings of abuse or neglect within its own facilities.

Darr’s team was able to review video of more than 300 restraints — and observed restraints used excessively, to elicit compliance with facility rules, as well as dangerous practices, like multiple staffers holding a teen in a prone position. In other incidents, aspects of the restraints were not disclosed in written reports.

The settlement also sets some limits on other types of punishment. For instance, kids now have a right to at least 30 minutes of fresh air a day.

Darr’s hope is that improved access to mental health treatment as a result of the settlement will lead to fewer incidents that would trigger such punishments in the first place.