There's been a major shakeup at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland following a series of violent incidents and the use of dangerous restraints on youth at the facility last month. Lawmakers familiar with the situation say criminal charges against several Long Creek corrections officers are also possible.
Democratic Rep. Charlotte Warren, co-chair of the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, says members were called to a meeting with Corrections Commissioner Randy Liberty on Wednesday morning.
"And he shared with us that over the last six weeks there have been six incidents at Long Creek Youth Development Center, that nine staff members are involved and that the three heads - the sort of administration in charge of Long Creek have either all resigned or been relocated within DOC," Warren says.
Those administrators include Long Creek Superintendent Caroline Raymond who has resigned, the head of security who has retired and Associate Corrections Commissioner Colin O'Neil who has been reassigned in the Department. Warren says she's disappointed that the commissioner waited until now to discuss the situation and to take action. The incidents were first brought to light by Disability Rights Maine in a September 2nd email to Commissioner Liberty.
"Our organization goes into Long Creek on a monthly basis and just conducts regular monitoring, talking to youth. And during a visit following August 2nd, several youth expressed concerns about some restraints that were used," says Atlee Reilly, an attorney for the group.
Those restraints, known as prone restraints, are considered dangerous and have previously been flagged by the Center for Children's Law and Policy in 2017 as inappropriate given the significant trauma health histories and mental health needs of youth at Long Creek.
"What we found, with regard to August 2nd, there were multiple uses of prone restraint within an hour period and it raised significant concern for us on several levels, not least of which was that they'd been told four years prior to fix this and this problem seemed to persist," Reilly says.
"To my knowledge, there's nothing in statute that bans these specific prone restraints," says Democratic Rep. Grayson Lookner, a member of the Criminal Justice Committee who recently sponsored a bill to close Long Creek. The bill was passed by lawmakers and vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills.
"You know, anybody who watched the George Floyd video, the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, saw that these restraints, these prone restraints where you are holding a victim down on their face and placing a knee on their back or upper back or neck can create injury or death and that's not something we need, especially not on youth," Lookner says.
Lookner says committee members were told that several corrections officers involved in the incidents are now being referred to the Attorney General and District Attorney's Office for possible criminal charges. He says what's happened in the past month only illustrates that incarceration of youth is not the road to rehabilitation. Rather, he says, it's the road to more trauma. Rep. Charlotte Warren says she's hoping the governor will intervene.
"I'm waiting to hear how the governor's going to engage on this issue, on this new information. I really would like this to be all of us in state government working together to do the right thing," Warren says.
The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
