After 70 kids and teenagers complained in the past year that they were mistreated while locked in detention centers, Colorado’s child protection ombudsman is calling for audio surveillance in the youth corrections system.
Cameras inside the state’s youth detention centers capture video, but not audio, which means any investigation into the use of restraints or physical force against youth is incomplete, the ombudsman said in a fiery brief issued Tuesday.
In response, the director of the Division of Youth Services said he’s already working on it. Anders Jacobson told The Colorado Sun that he is making plans to buy tiny cameras that attach to belt loops and discreetly collect video and audio of encounters between employees and young people who are in detention.
The body-worn cameras, the cost of which is estimated at $610,000 per year for five years, will also detect key words — such as “Will you help me escape?” — that would automatically alert supervisors, Jacobson said.
While the ombudsman’s brief felt “antagonistic” to Jacobson, he said his agency is in full agreement and has a head start — he’s already had a surveillance vendor in his office demonstrating the belt-loop devices.
“We want audio,” he said. “It aids in the investigation of any allegation. It doesn’t only protect youth, it protects staff as well. It’s not hard to go back and listen to the recording.”
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In her brief, Ombudsman Stephanie Villafuerte called on the Division of Youth Services to overhaul its surveillance system, adding audio capabilities at its 15 youth facilities statewide. The office accused the youth corrections division, part of the Colorado Department of Human Services, of leaving out audio surveillance even as it has built new youth centers and remodeled old ones.
In reviewing video surveillance, the ombudsman’s office has watched multiple “violent physical interactions between staff and youth,” the brief said.
“Youth have been pushed into walls, shoved and thrown to the floor, sometimes, by multiple adults,” the office wrote, noting that the incidents have not decreased despite a decade of efforts by lawmakers and advocates. Of the 70 complaints to the ombudsman in the past year, 47 involved excessive force or staff misconduct — a 27% increase from the previous year.
A 13-year-old boy’s face was slammed into a metal door frame as staff attempted to force him to the floor last year, causing a gash that required stitches. Division of Youth Services staff claimed the physical force was necessary because the teen had made verbal threats moments before.
In another example, a youth who was recovering from a concussion was restrained in 2022 even though medical staff had advised against any physical contact. The boy claimed staff had antagonized him with racist language before he made threats of harm.
Several youths have told the ombudsman that they were subjected to racial slurs or threats meant to disparage or intimidate them, and have alleged that staff are “aware of blind spots within camera systems” that they avoid. Without audio, the ombudsman cannot fully investigate the complaints.
“At best, this system provides half the information needed to assess these cases,” the ombudsman’s brief states. “The remainder of the information comes from those who may have the most to lose by being forthright.”
Tiny cameras would fit trauma-informed approach
Jacobson said he does not want traditional body-worn cameras like the ones that law enforcement officers attach to their chests. Those don’t fit with the Division of Youth Service’s trauma-informed approach to help young people recover from past abuse, and instead could pit kids against staff.
“It creates the potential of an us-against-them type of environment,” he said. “We are not adult jail. We are not law enforcement.”
Ten of the division’s 15 youth centers, with home-like environments instead of cells, and staff who do not wear uniforms, are certified as trauma-informed by a national agency called the Sanctuary Institute.
Jacobson said he will likely ask for state funding or look for federal grants that could cover the cost of the tiny cameras. “We don’t have that kind of extra money laying around in the budget,” he said.
Under state law, the Division of Youth Services is allowed to use physical force in emergencies and after the failure of less-restrictive alternatives. It’s up to staff to determine when an emergency exists and whether the young person poses “a serious, probable or imminent threat of bodily harm to themselves or others.”
Young people inside youth centers have “unfettered access” to the child protection ombudsman, as well as Disability Law Colorado, with phones inside the facilities that automatically connect to either, Jacobson said.
Use of restraints has increased, data shows
In a six-month period in 2023, 465 young people were restrained 4,614 times, according to the most recent report of the state’s Youth Restraint and Seclusion Working Group. That was up 34% from the prior six months. The use of mechanical restraints — handcuffs, shackles and belts — increased by 29%.
Black youth were involved in 38% of the restraint incidents, but make up 23% of the population in Colorado’s youth detention centers, which the ombudsman’s office called “particularly troubling.”
The ombudsman’s office also is requesting that the Division of Youth Services share more data regarding physical restraints, including the number of times a child or teen sustains serious injury, and the youth’s race and ethnicity.
The state legislature passed a law in 2017 intended to curb the use of restraints and seclusion for youth, a move that came after a report from several advocacy agencies, including ACLU Colorado, called “Bound and Broken.”
Other states, including Ohio, Louisiana and Wisconsin, have added audio surveillance to youth corrections facilities in recent years and claimed that the technology led to decreased violence, according to the ombudsman’s brief.
In Ohio, staff at the Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility began wearing cameras in 2022 after 12 youths barricaded themselves in a school building. Within a year, the center reported a 31% decrease in violence against staff.
The ombudsman also pointed toward Colorado’s 2020 law that required local law enforcement agencies and the Colorado State Patrol to use body-worn cameras in situations that might include a use of force. With $5 million in state funding, law officers at 200 agencies statewide now have body-worn cameras, the ombudsman said, calling it a “model” for the state’s 15 youth corrections centers.