Case: DOJ Investigation of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice

In October 2017, the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina (collectively, “the DOJ”) initiated an investigation of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (SCDJJ) pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), and the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act. The investigation was focused on the Broad River Road Complex (BRRC), which was South Carolina’s long-term juvenile commitment facility.

After the DOJ's initial investigation, it issued a findings report on February 5, 2020, in which it concluded that it had reasonable cause to believe that the SCDJJ failed to keep the young people in its custody reasonably safe from assaults by other young people and that it used prolonged and punitive isolation in violation of CRIPA. The investigation did not reveal a reasonable basis to believe that the SCDJJ violated the ADA through its use of pre-sentencing secure evaluation centers. To complete its investigation, the DOJ conducted several onsite tours and interviews, and reviewed available video footage of instances related to the alleged violations. 

The DOJ continued its investigation and issued a second findings report on April 14, 2022, concluding that: 1) the conditions at the BRRC violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and 2) the violations were pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. More specifically, the DOJ found that the SCDJJ failed to keep young people reasonably safe from excessive force by staff at the BRRC. Furthermore, the DOJ concluded that through its policies and procedures, failure to train its staff, and inadequate investigations, the Department seriously harmed young people and placed them at substantial risk of serious harm by staff.

In addition to issuing its findings, the DOJ made several suggestions for remedial measures:

1. improve the physical plan to ensure adequate surveillance and retain video to enable facility leadership to investigate allegations of abuse;
2. conduct a staffing study to determine the appropriate staffing levels and staffing patterns to adequately supervise youth in the male living units, and make changes to staffing patterns as necessary;
3. train staff on positive behavior management tools and de-escalation to reduce youth-on-youth violence and the use of isolation as a response to youth behavior;
4. eliminate the use of isolation for minor misbehavior, protective custody, and mental health observation;
5. replace long-term isolation with a short-term cool-down room in each housing unit for youth who are a threat to safety and develop policies to ensure that youth who are placed in the cool-down room are returned to the general population as soon as they are no longer a threat to safety;
6. develop admissions screening protocols to identify youth who are vulnerable to victimization by other youth in the facility and create a specialized housing unit for these youth with access to equal recreational and educational services as youth in the general population;
7. develop agreements with the state Department of Mental Health to ensure the prompt transfer of suicidal youth to appropriate placements for mental health treatment;
8. revise the use of force policy to emphasize age-appropriate interactions and de-escalation techniques, make clear that force may be used only to prevent imminent potential harm to staff or others, require timely reporting and review of all uses of force, and require immediate training and corrective action where staff action does not conform to the policy;
9. train staff on age-appropriate interactions with young people and adolescent development, de-escalation techniques, positive behavior management responses, and the revised use of force policy; and
10. conduct timely investigations of allegations of staff-on-youth harms, including retention of all relevant video footage, and at the conclusion of each investigation, conduct necessary training to prevent future harms and impose discipline, as appropriate, for abuses of young people.

Also on April 14, 2022, the DOJ filed a complaint pursuant to the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act. On the same day, the DOJ filed a settlement agreement resolving its investigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The matter was assigned to Judge Mary Geiger Lewis. In the agreement, the SCDJJ agreed to implement all of the DOJ's suggested remedial measures. The agreement also appointed an independent subject matter expert to monitor the agreement and make recommendations to ensure the SCDJJ’s compliance. Lastly, the agreement would expire in 5 years so long as SCDJJ attained substantial compliance with all provisions and maintained that compliance for one year. The parties jointly moved to conditionally dismiss the case and requested that the court retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement permitting reinstatement of the action in case of breach.