AGENCY ACKNOWLEDGES FIRING OF 7 WORKERS FOR ASSAULT THIS YEAR;
'GETTING WORSE AND WORSE'

State juvenile justice officials acknowledged yesterday that they have
fired seven employees for assaulting youths at the Cheltenham Youth
Facility in the past year.

The firings came to light yesterday as child welfare workers from
local social service departments poured into Cheltenham in Prince
George's County and 11 other state juvenile detention centers, under
orders from Gov. Parris N. Glendening to monitor around the clock how
the youths are treated.

Other social service workers were to conduct surprise visits at seven
smaller state facilities where juveniles are held.

The monitoring order came in the wake of a criminal investigation into
the state's three juvenile boot camps, where a governor's task force
has found a pattern of abuse by guards dating at least a year.

The task force was formed last week after a Sun series described how
guards at one of the Garrett County camps routinely assaulted the
teen-age delinquents -- kicking, punching and slamming them to the
ground. The camps' programs have been suspended, and one has been
closed altogether.

The task force sent a draft report last night to Glendening, who has
promised a quick response. The report will include a recommendation
that the state look to boot camps around the country to find a
successful model if they are to be reintroduced as part of the
juvenile justice system, according to task force members.

More broadly, they said, the report will criticize the Department of
Juvenile Justice as a disjointed collection of vaguely related
programs and recommend that state officials develop a plan to bring
them together.

"This is getting worse and worse all the time. We've got to get this
report to the man and wash our hands of this mess," Bishop L.
Robinson, a former public safety secretary who is leading the task
force, said in reference to the disarray in the juvenile justice agency.

Glendening declined to say yesterday whether his decision to send
independent monitors into juvenile justice facilitiesindicated a lack
of confidence in the agency's secretary, Gilberto de Jesus. "We want
to make sure all of the facilities are following the rules,"
Glendening said.

Advocates have long complained that serious problems in the facilities
that house Maryland's juvenile delinquents extend well beyond the
Western Maryland boot camps. But their complaints have gone largely
unheeded, they say.

At Cheltenham, according to department records, at least seven youth
supervisors were fired this year because they abused youths. The
facility has 114 youth supervisors on staff.

Bob Kannenberg, a spokesman for the juvenile justice agency, could not
provide details yesterday of the assaults that led to the Cheltenham
firings or say whether any of the employees had been criminally charged.

He said abuse at Cheltenham -- a chronically crowded detention center
where youths can wait months before they are placed in a more
permanent facility -- is not a "systemic problem."

"Obviously we have fired people over the past year for abuse, so some
allegations are founded, that's true," Kannenberg said. "Even if it's
not a chargeable child abuse incident, we may feel that staff has
exercised poor judgment.

"Clearly things are going to happen, especially given the population
we serve."

Previous concerns

Other problems that have emerged this year in state juvenile justice
facilities include:

* A 16-year-old Baltimore youth with a history of violence was
charged in June with raping a staffer who was left alone in an
unlocked building at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore
County.

* Less than a week later, five delinquents escaped from juvenile
facilities -- two from Hickey and three from the Victor Cullen Academy
in Frederick County. Both centers are run by Youth Services
International Inc., a for-profit company under contract to the state
agency.

* Cheltenham's superintendent was demoted and transferred in July
after a teen-age girl assigned to a work detail became pregnant by a
counselor, who was fired.

* A Montgomery County judge in September ordered a youth involved in
a gang rape released because the agency did not provide him with
proper sex offender counseling at Hickey.

Crowded facilities

Most of the state's large facilities are struggling with
crowding.

The Thomas J. S. Waxter Children's Center in Laurel, which typically
holds younger delinquents, had 91 youths yesterday with a capacity of
76. Victor Cullen was 14 youths over its capacity of 209 because some
juveniles had been sent there from the Savage Leadership Challenge
boot camp, which the governor closed last weekend, Kannenberg said.

And Cheltenham -- with a capacity of 169 juveniles -- held 231 youths
yesterday.

Originated in 1870 as the House of Reformation and Instruction for
Colored Children and later known as Boys' Village of Maryland,
Cheltenham has long been a target of reform efforts. While advocates
concede improvements were made several years ago, they have raised an
increasingly loud chorus of complaints about the sprawling campus with
its aging, crowded cottages and cells that stink of urine.

Marc Schindler, a staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in
Washington, has visited to Cheltenham several times in the past month,
interviewing delinquents and reviewing records.

"There is clearly inappropriate and excessive use of isolation,"
Schindler said. "The behavior modification system they have is clearly
not working. It appears staff are not trained well in this and are not
being monitored closely. We have heard some reports of excessive use
of force, particularly in breaking up fights between
youngsters."

Last month, the Maryland Juvenile Justice Coalition -- an umbrella
organization representing 46 groups -- sent a detailed list of
concerns about Cheltenham to Glendening and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend, who has been the administration's leader on criminal justice
issues.

The five-page letter said youths at Cheltenham had "showed scars,
bruises and other physical marks from alleged physical abuse at the
hands of staff." They also complained of increasing violence among
themselves, exacerbated by their large numbers and inadequate
supervision.

James P. McComb, the coalition's chairman, said yesterday that he has
yet to receive a response from the governor or lieutenant governor.
"Our concerns were just blown off," McComb said.

But Mike Morrill, the governor's chief spokesman, said the
administration responded -- to the coalition and to the controversies
stemming from the state boot camps -- by sending a management team to
review the department's operations and by sending in the monitors yesterday.

"Cheltenham is one of the priorities in getting these [monitors] in,
because, in fact, it was one the advocates mentioned," he said.

Sun staff writers Michael Dresser and Thomas W. Waldron contributed to
this report.