Feds chastise Contra Costa officials over juvenile hall solitary confinement policy
Source: Contra Costa Times
Attorneys for the federal Department of Justice and Department of Education told Contra Costa County officials in charge of juvenile hall to stop pointing fingers at each other and find a way to educate young people at the facility who are kept in solitary confinement.
The lawyers entered the fray last week in an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging Contra Costa's policy of locking up youths with disabilities in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day -- in some cases for months -- in a 12-by-12-foot cell -- and denying them an education during such confinement. The feds agreed with the plaintiffs that Contra Costa officials have been violating the disability rights of incarcerated youths in solitary confinement.
The lawsuit was filed last August by Berkeley-based Disability Rights Advocates, along with a pro-bono law firm and a private firm, on behalf of a teenage girl and two boys, all of whom were or are still detained at the maximum-security, 290-bed Martinez facility.
In March, a San Francisco federal judge will rule whether to grant class-action status to the suit, allowing other disabled youths to sue the county Probation Department, which runs juvenile hall, and Contra Costa Office of Education, which runs the McKinley School inside the facility.
Read more: http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_25174278/feds-chastise-contra-costa-officials-over-juvenile-hall
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