Senators ask SC’s top prosecutor to probe scathing DJJ audit for possible violations
A South Carolina Senate panel looking into an audit of the state agency that houses and educates juvenile offenders — damning, they say, in its detail of failures of the agency to protect youth — has now asked S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson to probe the same report to decide whether anyone may have acted “improperly or criminally.”
The request comes one day after senators blasted the agency, whose director, Freddie Pough, has acknowledged the yearslong problems at the state Department of Juvenile Justice and told reporters he is trying to fix them.
“We were shocked to hear many of the disturbing findings, ranging from potentially covering up instances of sexual assault and abuse to falsifying records and misuse of funds,” the six-member Senate Corrections and Penology Committee wrote to Wilson Thursday in a letter provided to The State.
“We intend to continue meeting until we are satisfied that the children and correctional staff at DJJ are safe and supported and can further ensure the accountability of management and leadership.”
The Legislative Audit Council released its 178-page report on the state agency earlier this month, meant to document what, if any, progress the juvenile justice department had made since 2017 when a previous review led to the resignation of the previous director.
The auditors found DJJ had implemented only half of their 2017 recommendations and that conditions at secure facilities actually had deteriorated in some respects. Violent incidents have spiked as the agency’s dwindling number of correctional officers struggle to adequately supervise juveniles in their care, according to the report.
As a result, more workers than in 2017 reported via survey that they feared for their safety at work, lead auditor Marcia Lindsay told senators Wednesday.
“We really did not have that in the last audit,” she said.
New employees also routinely failed to complete mandatory training within a year of their hire, a majority of juvenile corrections officers sampled did not pursue training recertification and workers were not always held accountable for repeated misconduct, the audit found.
The juveniles housed in DJJ’s secure facilities have suffered as a result of the agency’s staffing shortages and poorly trained workers, according to the report. For example, auditors found instances of juveniles failing to receive adequate medical care and mental health treatment because DJJ staff wasn’t available to take them to hospitals or doctor’s offices for appointments.
They also uncovered financial issues involving late vendor payments and asserted that money spent on raises for top-level managers could have been used to lift the salaries of frontline corrections staff, whose entry-level salaries are roughly $30,000.
“There was money available and they were not using it for the critical needs positions,” Lindsay testified Wednesday.
She also told senators that the scope of her team’s investigation had been impaired by an email Pough sent DJJ employees about the audit that may have had a chilling effect on their cooperation.
”I just find this almost obstruction of justice type stuff,” Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, said Wednesday after hearing of the director’s alleged interference in the audit. “I’m just astounded by what we just heard.”
While acknowledging the need for improvement in some areas, Pough said the Legislative Audit Council report contained numerous inaccuracies, despite his attempts to provide the auditors documentation that would correct the record.
“DJJ provided LAC with over 700 pages of written responses and supporting documentation that identified incorrect factual assertions, failures to consider pertinent information, and faulty and speculative conclusions contained in the report,” he wrote in a 10-page rebuttal to the auditors’ findings. “Despite this, LAC failed to correct the final version of the report accordingly.”
Gov. Henry McMaster has continued to stand by Pough since the audit was released and on Wednesday announced $12 million in federal spending out of his discretionary education account to expand juvenile delinquency prevention programs.
DJJ spokesman Jarid Munsch said the agency had no comment on calls for the attorney general to probe the agency.
“From the beginning, we approached this process cooperatively and with the hopes we’d all be better for it,” he said. “We still hope to create an honest, constructive dialogue and find long-term solutions for serving youth in our state.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2021 at 2:12 PM.
