Melee at juvenile facility spurs changes

Christmas Day 2023 was not much of a holiday at the Bernalillo County juvenile detention center. Visitation was canceled because staffing was too low for in-person visits. A lot of the newer employees worked that day, supervising a restless population of 55 youths.

The “uprising” that erupted that afternoon took more than four hours and a SWAT team to quell, as more than a dozen incarcerated youths ages 14 to 18 set up makeshift barricades, brandished broomsticks and scissors as weapons and demanded fast food from negotiators. Three youths sustained minor injuries.

Charges were later filed against three alleged instigators, but some detainees families and community leaders blamed conditions at the center on Second Street NW for the disturbance.

The incident served as a wake-up call for county leaders who this week announced a slate of changes, some more immediate than others, to head off another such disturbance. Some changes already in the works were fast-tracked. A priority is rapid hiring of employees.

“In our history, we haven’t had an event such as that (on Dec. 25),” said Greg Perez, deputy county manager for public safety.

The facility is intended to hold juveniles awaiting resolution of their criminal charges.

“It’s supposed to be a short-term detention facility. But we have seen a trend kind of over the last five, six years, that we’ve got some kids that have been in there for three to four years. That was never the intent. Our facility wasn’t built for that.”

Ideally, the detention facility population would be no more than 45 youths, adhering to a facility rule requiring one employee for eight detainees, Perez said.

“That allows us to move them around more frequently, get them out of their cell a lot more, allows us to return back to some programming, get schooling back in place, all of which are huge benefits,” Perez said. “It causes us a lot of issues when they’re held up in their cells for extended periods of time. The temperature in the facility rises, tensions rise, and ultimately it leads to something like we experienced on the 25th. So we don’t want to be back there again.”

After the Christmas Day fracas, the juvenile population dropped somewhat, but then increased to 63, Perez said. That resulted “in us having to actually close the door to any new intakes and work diligently with our partners on the court side and probation/parole to try to get those that we could out of the system to get that number down.”

Data from the county show that in mid-February, youths were, on average, confined 7.38 hours a day, while 44 received face-to-face education for one day of the week.

“Ideally, you want to get them to a longer-term facility (after their case is resolved) where they can start the programming and really start that rehabilitation process,” Perez told the Journal on Tuesday. “We have since jumped into that mode.”

He said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public health order to reduce gun violence wasn’t directly to blame for the increase in juveniles being held, but “it has added to the challenges that we already had with staffing, when you are arresting more kids for things that maybe they weren’t being arrested for.”

The juvenile population went from the high 30s to between 50 and 60 in the four months after the order was issued in September, he said, “but again, I wouldn’t put all that on the governor by any means.”

Under that Sept. 7 emergency order, juveniles caught with handguns are detained rather than automatically released pending resolution of their cases or allowed alternative detention. Since September, more than 130 juveniles were detained for a delinquency act in which a firearm was involved, according to the Governor’s Office website.

After a case is filed, Children’s Court judges can set release conditions, if warranted.

The facility, which has 78 beds, currently has about a 48% staff vacancy rate. The current number of detention staff monitoring juveniles is 35, but that could increase to 64 after a new class of recruits graduates from the academy, Perez said. A rapid-hire event is also set for March 16.

Some changes ahead: outsourcing detainees’ laundry to address reports of mildew, and offering more privacy in the restroom area, where surveillance cameras are used to help avert violent resident-on-resident attacks that have happened in the past, he said.

Perez said the facility, also called the Youth Services Center, is also planning to hire a permanent director by April 1. At the time of the Christmas disturbance, the prior director was on a monthslong personal leave. He retired Feb. 22. Security measures also have been enhanced, and training for new staff will be increased, Perez added, while $1 million for facility improvements is also proposed.

Perez said there had been a few “warning signs” prior to Dec. 25 that “we should have paid more close attention to.” But in the end, he added, “We’ve learned some lessons from it, and that will make us better going forward.”