The Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility is again operating under state supervision less than a month after a public emergency order was lifted following the alleged sexual assault of a child and months of overcrowding and understaffing in the troubled facility.
On June 20, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reinstated its monitoring of the Hamtramck facility where juvenile offenders are housed following an unspecified "incident," Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Bob Wheaton said Sunday.
"The department is investigating the incident and is unable to release details at this time," Wheaton said Sunday in an email.
State workers returned to the Wayne County facility "out of an abundance of caution immediately after the county notified MDHHS of an incident at the facility," he said.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has at least one employee at the county's juvenile jail during every shift, Wheaton said, "to help assure the safety of the youth and staff and to provide support when necessary."
Wayne County officials did not immediately respond Sunday afternoon to requests for comment.
The return of state workers monitoring the operations of the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility came less than a month after Wayne County Executive Warren Evans' public health emergency order for the facility was lifted.
In late March, Evans declared a rare public health emergency for that facility, saying it had become "the situation has become untenable for nearly 140 youth that are currently residing there."
The public health emergency order ended June 5, approximately 15 days before county officials notified the state human services department about the unspecified incident that prompted the return of state workers to the facility.
The juvenile facility, which was built to house about 80 juvenile offenders, has been at nearly double its capacity for months, at times holding up to 150 teenagers. On June 5, the county had cut the number of juvenile detainess 16% to 113 juveniles. The number had declined as low as 105 juveniles, according to the county.
The Evans administration has said it has spent $10 million on addressing the facility's needs and has worked with the Wayne County Circuit Court and the state to reduce the population, increase staffing, expand placements, spread the kids out and start offering mental health treatment, among other improvements. The juveniles were separated by age and criminal charge, which is a best practice in juvenile detention, according to the county.
Wages at the JDF were increased 35% across the board, which allowed the county to hire an additional 54 people since March, according to Evans' office. The county also hired two new deputy directors and was in the process of hiring a third in early June.
Abdul El-Sayed, the director of the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services, told The Detroit News on June 5 the county had "fundamentally changed the experience of a young person in the facility." Juveniles now have access to clean underwear, showers and hygiene products daily — a problem that the state had highlighted in March — and are not spending most of their days locked in their rooms, he said. They also have more recreation and in-person learning time, El-Sayed said.
"We're now working collaboratively with partners on the local and state levels so that we can move toward reform and transformation," Evans said in a June 5 statement.
Prior to Evans' public health emergency oder, Wayne County and state officials had been at odds over the cause of the overcrowding, with county officials blaming the state for not funding enough beds in residential treatment centers for troubled teenagers. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel said discussions began in earnest in September. Hertel told The Detroit News in March that staffers had reported that some kids hadn't had access to showers in months and did not have hygiene products or clean underwear.
The state's first intervention was prompted by the alleged sexual assault of a child being held in the facility. The alleged sexual assault prompted the Evans administration to fire one top-level employee at the facility and a reassign a second employee to a different job. The investigation was still ongoing on June 5, and there was no indication Sunday about its status.
Evans has blamed a statewide shortage of residential centers as a reason why juvenile offenders get stuck in Wayne County's overcrowded detention facility without mental or behavioral health treatment.
"Right now, we house up to 65 children who are supposed to exit our facility once their cases have been adjudicated — but they can't because the state hasn't provided long-term placement," Evans said March 21 during his annual State of the County address. "Many of these kids who have been adjudicated have spent more than 100 additional days in detention custody instead of the treatment facilities that they deserve."
Wayne County Circuit Court Chief Judge Patricia Fresard has said the county's juvenile detention facility, known as the JDF, has become a holding center for adjudicated state wards as they wait for a bed to become available.
"The conditions are horrible because they're misusing JDF," Fresard told The Detroit News in March.
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(Staff writers Kara Berg and Louis Aguilar contributed)
