Room Service? Detention Youth Must Be Fed On Time

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Ohio youth detention facilities must insure that inmates who don't report for meals in the cafeteria are still fed, a federal judge ruled Friday.

A meal policy piloted at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility in August and implemented at other facilities did not put a priority on inmates' health and safety, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley said. He ordered the Ohio Department of Youth Services to rewrite its policy to reflect that all youth in custody must be fed, youth who fear for their safety must be fed at mealtime, and the department must log a reason each time an inmate refuses to eat.

Officials at the Circleville and Ohio River Valley facilities confirmed that "multiple youth at DYS facilities had been denied meals when declining to eat," the ruling says. "... the youth who refused meals were not otherwise fed - they simply did not eat those meals."

Department spokeswoman Kim Parsell said youth at times refuse to go to the cafeteria, "primarily because they don't want to get out of bed for breakfast," so a protocol was developed last August. She said she is unaware of any youth who were refused meals.

"DYS has not and does not withhold food for punishment, and youth have not missed more than two consecutive meals pursuant to the protocol, and DYS' meal protocol has in no way compromised the health or safety of any youth," Parsell said.

Data from the Circleville facility show that 429 meals were turned down by inmates from the last week of August through Monday. Of those, 386 were breakfasts, 30 were lunches and 13 were dinners. Inmates refused two meals in a row nine times.

Al Gerhardstein, a lawyer for youth inmates, said the scope of the problem is still being determined, but that he does not believe anyone's health was at risk. He said "some kids got some food, some kids didn't" and that Marbley requested the log books to make sure the policy both ensures inmates' constitutional rights and respects the needs of the facilities to have an orderly process.

"Obviously, if a kid is refusing to go to the cafeteria, there's a reason. If he's afraid, he needs a safety plan; if he's sick he needs to be taken care of medically; if he just wants to sleep in, then that needs to be part of the overall rehabilitation of the kid," he said.

The Circleville facility became a "Close Security" site in May, bringing aggressive youth and gang-related activity, according to a memo written by the facility's superintendent. It says that several youth refused to go to the cafeteria in May, June and July, forcing staff to take hundreds of meals to units.

The process "resulted in the programming schedule being disrupted, youth could not get to school on time, and an increase
in food service cost," Superintendent Thomas Teague writes.

Teague says some youth who refused to go to the cafeteria had been threatened by gang-affiliated inmates, but others wanted to sleep in, thought it was too hot, didn't like what was being served or wanted "room service."

"If a youth refused to go to the cafeteria for safety reasons, staff ensured that a meal was brought back to the unit to them,"
Teague writes.

Gerhardstein said the problem is an "unusual event" and that he has been working with the department on several issues "to implement policies that are transforming this agency from one thatwas really dealing with the kids in an unconstitutional way to one
that's gradually becoming a model for the rest of the country."

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