The federal trial alleging that children held at Polk County’s adult jail are regularly subjected to abuse, neglect and violence, including placing children in cage for hours or overnight, is scheduled to begin on June 19th.
In March 2012, The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against the Polk County Sheriff’s Office for abuse, neglect and violence toward juvenile offenders in that jail. The lawsuit followed claims of harsh treatment by the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Children’s Campaign.
The Florida Legislature in 2011 passed SB 2112 allowing children to be detained in adult county jails as a way for counties to cut costs, rather than pay for state-run facilities especially designed for juveniles. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office opted to do just that.
While the Polk County Sheriff’s Office denied that children are being abused at a five-day federal hearing in the fall of 2012, in March earlier this year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo issued a report sharply criticizing the treatment of children in the Polk County Jail. He further wrote that “…children are not the same as adults and they should not be treated as such,” SPLC reported.
The SPLC also reported that the stories of children harshly treated were riveting:
Children on suicide watch were stripped naked in front of their peers and forced to wear a suicide suit, a small sleeveless garment that left them partially exposed and kept in “kennel like” structures. There was also argument as to the effect of long term adult jail time to children. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention showed statistically children kept in adult jails were 34% more likely to end up being re-arrested than children in juvenile centers.
The SPLC said, the federal case goes beyond getting justice for the children who have suffered at the hands of people entrusted to care for them; it could be the turning point in changing legislation passed in 2011 that undid years of best practices and allowed children to be housed in adult facilities.
