Juvenile Hall Reforms Ordered : Judge in OC Limits Use of Restraints

Calling for better treatment of youngsters confined at Juvenile Hall, a Superior Court judge found today that errant teens are thrown into padded rooms or cuffed to metal-frame beds without proper care and supervision, and the judge imposed strict new guidelines for such punishment.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Linda H. McLaughlin concluded that the current practice of subjecting unruly teens to leather-cuff restraints or placing them in “rubber rooms” violates their constitutional right to be free from bodily restraint because it is ordered by unqualified staffers and undertaken with inadequate medical supervision.

In a written decision issued after a five-week civil rights trial, McLaughlin acknowledged that restraints were generally used only when minors posed a danger to themselves or those around them. But she also ruled that the potential psychological and physical injury that could come from putting a youth in restraints calls for the intervention of a psychiatrist.

McLaughlin ordered the county to obtain a psychiatrist’s approval before cuffing detainees to beds or locking them in “rubber rooms.” If such approval cannot be quickly obtained and it is a “clear emergency,” the decision to restrain a youth may be made by Juvenile Hall staff members, but only those who have been certified by a psychiatrist as trained and qualified to make such a decision, McLaughlin said.

Once an adolescent is in cuffs or a rubber room, a nurse must supervise and keep records of the entire incident, McLaughlin ordered. Within five days of the youth’s release from restraints, a psychiatrist must review all records of the incident and submit a written approval of the way it was handled, McLaughlin said.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and San Francisco’s Youth Law Center, who brought the lawsuit, deferred comment until they had a chance to read McLaughlin’s 49-page decision.

McLaughlin’s decision also gave the civil-rights lawyers one other victory: She agreed that Juvenile Hall’s procedure restricting attorney access to detainees is unconstitutionally vague and must be rewritten. That procedure requires a lawyer who wishes to see a detainee to get permission from the youth’s Juvenile Court-appointed attorney.

But McLaughlin handed the plaintiffs’ lawyers a string of defeats on a host of more minor challenges to other Juvenile Hall practices. She said there was nothing unconstitutional about the way youths were sent to their rooms when they misbehaved or the kind of access they were given to legal materials on request. She also saw no problems with the reading and censoring of the youths’ mail, the monitoring of their visits and phone calls or the restrictions on the kinds of reading materials they were permitted to have.

McLaughlin agreed that the Hall frequently exceeded its rated 314-person capacity, but said that overcrowding did not rise to the level of a constitutional violation because the basic needs of the minors are still being met.

The plaintiffs had also complained that youths are disciplined without adequate grievance or due-process procedures and that they are given insufficient access to toilets or outdoor exercise, but McLaughlin said she disagreed.