Ending imprisonment of SC youth with mental illness may transform DJJ, agency says
South Carolina’s troubled juvenile justice agency could begin reversing its longstanding staffing and morale issues if the children with serious mental illnesses it’s been locking up illegally are relocated, officials said.
The Department of Juvenile Justice, which for years has struggled to recruit and retain frontline correctional staff in part because of employee safety concerns, is pushing for the construction of a state-run psychiatric residential treatment facility where some of the youth currently in lockup would reside and receive treatment.
“I feel like if we can appropriately place them and get them in a better situation, then maybe everything else can kind of change at DJJ,” Director Eden Hendrick told lawmakers earlier this month.
Hendrick, who came into her role last September after the agency’s former director resigned under pressure and was tapped Tuesday to permanently lead the department pending Senate approval, said she quickly recognized the operational challenges posed by housing youth with serious mental illnesses.
Employees were expending considerable time and energy dealing with children they weren’t equipped to handle who shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
“I already knew that this was an issue going on,” she said, “but I never really understood how it actually impacted the agency and the agency’s ability to carry out its crucial mission.”
Since 2015, when South Carolina’s lone state-run residential treatment center for children closed, dozens of delinquent children with serious mental illnesses have been locked up at juvenile detention facilities in violation of state law for lack of another option.
On any given day, children with serious mental illnesses make up roughly a quarter of the population at the state’s long-term juvenile commitment facility in Columbia, according to agency data.
While the Department of Mental Health finds private placement for some of these children, the most challenging ones end up languishing behind the fence at the Broad River Road complex because other centers won’t take them.
“It’s just not worth their time for the money to deal with the very difficult kids,” Hendrick said.
DJJ’s challenge of caring for youth with mental illnesses
The severely understaffed agency is woefully unsuited to handle juveniles with serious mental illnesses who can be disruptive, destructive and struggle to take direction or interact with others.
Hendrick said shortly after starting last year, she took a particular interest in one child whose behavior was a frequent topic of staff meetings.
“This one kid basically paralyzed an entire institution,” she said. “If he wasn’t there, our whole staff would have been focused on the … 50 other kids who are appropriately placed.”
Hendrick eventually found a residential treatment facility in another state that was willing to accept the child, but such placements are rare and not ideal for children or their families.
Oftentimes, children with the highest needs remain stuck at the Department of Juvenile Justice, where they attract the lion’s share of workers’ attention to the detriment of the rest of the juvenile population, she said.
“Unfortunately, they actually are causing trouble for the other youth that are there,” Hendrick said. “We’re not able to rehabilitate the majority of the youth because we’re spending a lot of time with this type of youth that tends to be disruptive.”
The department has tried to limit its use of isolation since a 2020 U.S. Department of Justice investigation found isolation was being employed excessively and unconstitutionally, but DJJ still isolates youth when it feels there is no other option.
On multiple occasions, children with mental illnesses who were isolated after acting out ended up tearing down ceilings, endangering themselves and forcing the closure of units, officials said. Such erratic and destructive behavior can put staff on edge and make it hard to retain workers.
A Legislative Audit Council survey conducted last year found 57% of DJJ staff who worked with youth at secure facilities felt unsafe there, a 17 percentage point increase from 2017.
The fear of working in such a chaotic and potentially dangerous environment for low wages — juvenile correctional officers start at roughly $30,000 — has made it difficult to attract and keep workers.
Despite implementing sign-on and retention bonuses last year, more than half of the agency’s 410 correctional officer positions remain vacant, Hendrick told lawmakers earlier this month.
“DJJ cannot reform itself and cannot move forward and cannot start recruiting and getting more staff in and building better facilities or renovating our facilities where we are until we can solve the problem of really appropriately serving these kids,” she said.
Turning around DJJ
State officials believe the diversion of youth with serious mental illnesses from lockup to a residential treatment facility operated by the Department of Mental Health could be just what the juvenile justice department needs to begin rebuilding its depleted staff and boost employee morale.
Current plans call for the construction of a 16-to-20-bed facility on Department of Mental Health land in northeast Columbia. Hendrick and DMH officials prefer to build from scratch rather than retrofit an existing space to ensure it meets the specific needs of residents.
They estimate it will cost about $20 million to design and build, and another $9 to $11 million per year to operate.
“This is going to be, in our estimation, one of the most important things that we can do to improve the workplace environment at DJJ for the (juvenile correctional officers) that we have all heard from,” said Brian Symmes, spokesman for Gov. Henry McMaster.
If staff were no longer forced to dedicate so much time and energy to children whose needs they could not meet and focused instead on those whose needs they were better equipped to handle, everyone would benefit, he said.
The staff-to-juvenile ratio would decrease, the job would become less dangerous and more manageable, and as word spreads that conditions have improved the agency could finally begin to backfill its 200-plus officer vacancies, Symmes said.
In turn, severely mentally ill youth who had lacked access to a stable, therapeutic setting when they were locked up could finally begin getting the specialized care they need from appropriately trained staff.
“That’s why the governor is as engaged in this as he is,” Symmes said. “It’s a unique opportunity to address both of those issues.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.