A photograph of a juvenile detention room provided by the North Carolina Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
NC Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention division
A lawsuit filed by a handful of teens could reshape life for hundreds locked in North Carolina’s largest juvenile detention center.
A federal judge last week granted teens who filed the lawsuit last year the right to seek changes on behalf of all current and future youth detained at the Cabarrus Regional Juvenile Detention Center in the ongoing legal battle.
The civil case doesn’t seek any money. It aims to prohibit the state from putting children and teens awaiting trial in what lawyers and others say is clearly solitary confinement: being locked in small rooms for about 23 hours a day.
Such conditions at Cabarrus and other state-run youth detention sites leave those locked inside little to no access to school, therapy or recreation, the lawsuit states. That violates their constitutional rights to due process and protection from cruel and unusual punishment, the civil complaint argues.
State attorneys deny that state officials are keeping youth in their rooms and not providing them access to education.
Recent court filings in the 2024 lawsuit also include descriptions of “shocking physical conditions,” such as visible mold and walls covered with graffiti and excrement, the reports said.
The judge’s Oct. 22 decision means that if a judge or jury orders the state to make changes, they would apply to what happens now and in the future at the facility. .
The judge’s ruling fell short of the teens’ and their attorneys’ request to include all youth held at the state’s nine facilities before they have a trial for their charges.
Concerns surfaced in 2023
The Cabarrus detention center, a two-building facility in Concord, opened in 200 for kids waiting for their cases to go before a judge.
Since early 2023, officials from the Charlotte-based Council for Children’s Rights, which filed the lawsuit along with attorneys in private practice, voiced concern to state officials about “alarming” conditions, the lack of educational services and too much time spent locked in rooms at the Cabarrus facility.
“Defense attorneys for children detained and jailed in the Cabarrus Juvenile Jail have repeatedly put on the record in these children’s court cases that the children are not being allowed out of their cells, are not receiving educational services, and are not receiving therapeutic services,” the lawsuit states.
The council represented youth in court in Mecklenburg County until it was recently disbanded amid funding cuts.
In December 2023, The News & Observer first revealed concerns about youth in temporary detention facilities being held in solitary confinement-like conditions — in rooms with only a bed, toilet, sink and small window for about 23 hours a day in facilities across the state.
In 2023 interviews, William Lassiter, deputy secretary of North Carolina’s Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said the state turned to isolating youth in their rooms more frequently after a severe staffing shortage and other challenges created safety concerns for youth and staff.
North Carolina banned the use of solitary confinement years ago, Lassiter said at the time.
He didn’t consider the practice drawing criticism to be solitary confinement, he said, since it wasn’t used as a punishment and youth weren’t being held in a special isolated unit.
State juvenile justice officials declined to comment on the expanded lawsuit.
Denied statewide class action status
Initially, the lawsuit sought class-action status to include all youth in the nine state facilities, meaning any changes ordered would affect all youth in state custody awaiting trial.
But in her Oct. 22 order granting class-action status, Chief District Judge Catherine C. Eagles described evidence of all detention facilities implementing written policies in the same way as “thin.”
Pulling in juveniles from all facilities across the state into the lawsuit would be challenging and less likely to result in “meaningful injunctive relief,” Eagles’ order states.
So the judge limited it to the Cabarrus facility, a 62-bed juvenile detention facility that housed three of the youth who brought the lawsuit.
Inspection reports
New filings in the lawsuit include inspection reports from Disability Rights North Carolina, this state’s protection and advocacy agency, showing that youth remained in their cells even in facilities that weren’t experiencing severe staffing shortages.
Officials from Disability Rights in July 2024 observed young people in Pitt Regional Detention Center in Greenville held in windowless rooms for all but one to three hours a day, says an inspection report filed as evidence in the case. But the facility had 30 of its 32 staff positions filled, a court filing states.
“All narrow windows to the outside had been obscured or spray-painted black such that young people are unable to see outside, and young people’s windows to the day room areas were kept covered with opaque black flaps,” the report said.
Youth detained at New Hanover Regional Detention Center reported being allowed out of their small rooms for only 1.5 to six hours on weekdays. The Perquimans Juvenile Detention Center in Hertford reported variations in time out of rooms, from two to six hours on weekdays.
The 18-bed Pitt regional facility had visible mold and walls covered in graffiti, dried excrement, according to the court filing.
In their filings, attorneys representing the state objected to the Disability Rights reports being presented as evidence in the case, saying they are ”hearsay and unreliable.”
“They consist of unsworn summaries of statements made by unidentified juveniles and staff, compiled by unidentified DRNC monitors,” the lawsuit says.
Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
Virginia Bridges
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