Dallas County’s juvenile detention center is facing allegations of inhumane treatment and neglect.
An investigation into the Dr. Jerome McNeil Jr. Detention Center in West Dallas showed that children were unlawfully secluded for multiple days in a row, circumventing due process and purportedly leaving them without access to education, exercise, outdoor recreation, or showers, per The Dallas Morning News.
Additionally, the staff at the detention center allegedly falsified observation sheets, which are used to record the routine status checks on each child in county detention. County leaders told DMN that the reports were falsified, claiming they were likely manipulated to cover up staff mistreatment.
State inspectors discovered that a discontinued special needs unit at the detention center was improperly used to isolate the children.
Children with disciplinary problems were secluded in cells in that unit for up to five days. According to the center’s website, the unit was designed to accommodate “youth who are on formal probation with a mental health diagnosis, which could lead to more criminal behavior and affect their ability to follow probation guidelines.”
The youth in the unit are supposed to receive services from “community partners for therapeutic treatments, case management from specially trained probation officers, and special attention from judges with extra review hearings.”
The report says that staff members were aware that the frequent confinement of juvenile residents in the cells created “systemic neglect.”
In addition, the investigation found that 176 of 191 observation sheets of juveniles processed through the special needs unit were missing.
“This has been going on for a long time. So people were either somehow oblivious to the children not being in their classroom or children not being out for recess,” Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said, per DMN. “Or they knew about it and didn’t come forward or question it.”
“It’s clear that outside resources need to come in to help fix this because the department itself has not self-corrected in the many years that this undisclosed program was occurring,” he said.
The report comes after Darryl Beatty, the executive director of the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center, resigned following a surprise inspection of the facility, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The resignation came amid allegations of mistreatment and inhumane conditions at the detention facility. Whistleblowers provided WFAA with pictures showing filthy living conditions and claimed that inmates were only allowed out of their cells for one hour per day. State law requires that they be out of their cells for 10 hours per day.
More findings from the report are expected to be released to the public in the future.
