ACLU Seeks Lincoln Hills Injunction
Wants court to temporarily ban solitary confinement at juvenile prisons.
The ACLU asked a judge Wednesday to temporarily ban the use of solitary confinement “for disciplinary or punitive purposes” at the state’s Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake juvenile prisons.
In a motion for a temporary injunction, the ACLU of Wisconsin also asks the federal court to “eliminate the routine use of mechanical restraints, including handcuffing juveniles in solitary confinement to a waist belt and tethering youth to a table during their only time out of their cells.”
Joining the ACLU in its filing was the Juvenile Law Center, with pro-bono assistance from Quarles & Brady.
It also seeks to “eliminate the use of pepper spray for punishment and behavior management or control.”
Exceptions to the prohibitions would be allowed to prevent imminent and serious harm to people.
“Isolating, handcuffing and pepper spraying children is not only dehumanizing and traumatizing, it is also unnecessary and counterproductive,” Larry Dupuis, Legal Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, said in a prepared statement.. “As experts in the field show, these practices actually undermine institutional safety and security. As a result, most juvenile correctional facilities no longer use pepper spray, restraints or punitive solitary confinement.”
The ACLU has filed suit on behalf of past and current inmates of the two facilities alleging the extreme disciplinary practices at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake violate the inmates’ constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and cruel and unusual punishment. The practices also violate the youths’ due process rights, according to the suit. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson.
The brief says that solitary confinement is known to cause psychological harm to adolescents.
“Research on adolescent development makes clear why juvenile solitary confinement is ‘uniquely harmful’,” the brief says, adding, “Stress derails brain development, and for a juvenile, simply being placed in isolation – the utter helplessness of it – is enormously stressful.”
The brief says pepper spray use is on the upswing. “The use of pepper spray at LHS/CLS has increased dramatically since the beginning of 2016,” the brief says. LHS/CLS (Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake School) staff documented 198 pepper spray incidents in the first 10 months of 2016 – nearly 20 deployments per month, compared with 45 incidents in all of 2015.”
Several juveniles have displayed symptoms such as difficulty breathing or coughing blood after being exposed to pepper spray, the brief says.
“These practices are so harmful that we’re taking decisive action to stop them immediately,” said Jessica Feierman, Associate Director of Juvenile Law Center. “Putting children in solitary, shackling them to tables, and pepper spraying them isn’t rehabilitation – it’s abuse.”
Vincent Schiraldi, a juvenile corrections expert from the Harvard School of Government, describes Wisconsin’s practices as “excessively restrictive” and “a substantial departure from accepted professional standards, practice and judgment,” according to the brief.
The full brief is here.
Gretchen Schuldt writes a blog for Wisconsin Justice Initiative, whose mission is “To improve the quality of justice in Wisconsin by educating the public about legal issues and encouraging civic engagement in and debate about the judicial system and its operation.”
More about the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake
- MKE County: County Has Just 22 Inmates in Youth Prisons - Edgar Mendez - Feb 24th, 2021
- Evers Pushes Juvenile Justice System Changes - Corri Hess - Feb 18th, 2021
- Youth Justice Milwaukee Calls for Transformation of the Wisconsin Youth Justice System as the State Acknowledges it Will Not Meet the July 2021 Deadline to Close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake Prisons - Youth Justice Milwaukee - Feb 8th, 2021
- Pandemic Causes Youth Prison Problems - Graham Kilmer - Jan 27th, 2021
- Can State Rescue Youth Corrections Plan? - Graham Kilmer - Jan 11th, 2021
- State Can’t Meet Deadline to Close Youth Prisons - Graham Kilmer - Dec 30th, 2020
- MKE County: Crowley Defers Youth Corrections Grant Until State Has Sustainable Plan - Graham Kilmer - Sep 16th, 2020
- State Blows Up County Youth Corrections Plan - Graham Kilmer - May 20th, 2020
- Youth Advocates Remain Committed to Closing Wisconsin Youth Prisons Following Monitor’s Report - American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin - Mar 5th, 2020
- Milwaukee County Wants Alternatives to Youth Incarceration - Sam Woods - Feb 22nd, 2020
Read more about Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake here