Judges in Thurston County Superior Court told the state it has two weeks to return the 43 young men it moved quickly from the Green Hill School juvenile rehabilitation center to an adult prison in Shelton, unless the state can show the court that the move was necessary to avoid dangerous overcrowding.
There were transfers of young men from Green Hill, and Columbia Legal Services, which represents them, asked the court for a preliminary order to stop the move by the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) and stop similar transfers in the future. They said the transfers were “egregious violations of state law.”
Lawyer Sarah Nagy said the state didn’t give the 21–24-year-olds their due process, like a lawyer or the meetings they were supposed to have. By law, teens and young people who were convicted of crimes as minors can stay in juvenile facilities until they turn 25.
Nagy said that her clients would not be able to finish their degrees or the programs that are only available at Green Hill School if they were not sent back to the juvenile facility. “They will lose the continuity of their mental health programming and their job training,” she said.
Nagy said that one of the young men who was sent to Shelton had already been attacked by another person and was put in solitary confinement to protect himself.
Dan Judge, an attorney for DCYF, said that the state moved the men without getting permission from the court because it is responsible for keeping order in its prisons. He also said that asking for emergency hearings to move the men would have told the young prisoners ahead of time and “posed a great danger to an already untenable situation at the prison that was on the verge of a riot.”
A microwave was taken away from an inmate at Green Hill because they used it as a weapon and hit someone with it, Judge said. This happened just a few days before the move.
A microwave was taken away from an inmate at Green Hill because they used it as a weapon and hit someone with it, Judge said. This happened just a few days before the move.
The judge said that Green Hill now has 188 prisoners, which is close to its goal of 180. A few weeks ago, 240 young people were living there. He said that a court order to send the guys back to Green Hill right away “would be like pouring gasoline on a fire that is already burning.”
By August 2, the state had to return 43 men from state prison to Green Hill School. Judge Anne Egeler said that the state could not move any more juvenile prisoners to adult prisons without following due process. She also said that the state had time to ask for emergency permission to keep the men in prison.
The case is set to go to Thurston County Superior Court on September 27 for a hearing on a permanent order. If this goes through, the state would have to return the young men to Green Hill and not move any others without due process.
On July 5, DCYF told counties that it would stop taking in minors who were sentenced to state rehabilitation until Green Hill was no longer overcrowded. Because of that decision, county courts are in a lot of trouble, and many of them say their local youth detention centers don’t have the space or services to hold kids for long periods.
