Washington counties sue state Department of Children, Youth and Families

SEATTLE – Thirteen Washington counties sued the Department of Children, Youth and Families on Thursday for suspending its intakes of youth offenders as some lawmakers and juvenile justice experts called on Gov. Jay Inslee to fire the department’s leader.

The lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court follows a turbulent month for the overwhelmed department, which on July 5 announced it would not take any more sentenced juveniles into its two overcrowded detention centers. The department then transferred 43 young men, ages 21 to 25, to an adult prison to address overcrowding, which a Thurston County judge last week ruled violated a settlement agreement and statute.

The lawsuit came one day before the Friday deadline Judge Anne Egeler imposed on DCYF to return the men to juvenile detention. On Thursday evening, the department said it is disappointed by the ruling but “intends to comply with court orders.”

On Wednesday, a state advisory group on juvenile justice composed of reform advocates, court officials and some elected representatives in a letter to Inslee called for the governor to fire DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter, saying the department is experiencing “escalating mismanagement.”

Due to the overcrowding, DCYF left it to the counties to house juvenile offenders after they are sentenced instead of transferring them to Echo Glen or Green Hill as required by state law for youth sentenced to over 30 days.

The complaint, filed by the Washington State Association of Counties and Pierce, Clark, Cowlitz, Douglas, Grant, Lewis, Skagit, Snohomish, Spokane, Stevens, Thurston, Walla Walla and Yakima counties, alleges DCYF is failing in its obligation and violating state law by suspending intakes. That violation, they argue, denies young people rehabilitation and impedes public safety throughout the counties.

“DCYF’s only excuse – a lack of capacity – is both its own fault and legally irrelevant,” stated a motion asking the court to direct DCYF to admit juveniles.

The Juvenile Justice Act of 1977 states any juvenile sentence that exceeds 30 days “shall be served under the supervision of the department.”

According to the complaint, DCYF made the July 5 decision without advance notice to county elected officials, judges, prosecutors or juvenile court administrators. There are at least eight juvenile offenders who have been sentenced in county facilities awaiting transfer to DCYF, according to the complaint. Pierce County expects to commit up to 50 more youths to DCYF by the end of 2024, according to court documents.

In a statement, DCYF spokesperson Nancy Gutierrez said freezing intakes “was necessary to mitigate ongoing threats to safety caused by overcrowding.”

“We anticipated legal actions but hope for a quick resolution based on our shared interests of balancing both public safety and juvenile rehabilitation,” the statement said.

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs voiced concern over the suspension of intakes, saying in a news release that asking counties to house juvenile offenders “is wholly unacceptable.”

The lawsuit argues the counties cannot address the youth’s rehabilitative needs and would need to divert resources for their services. The counties do not all have the therapeutic services, schooling or trained staff necessary for longer-term juvenile rehabilitation, the counties argued. They’re designed for short-term stays – and housing youth that should be in DCYF’s care could result in a lack of space for incoming offenders, according to the motion.

The motion also stated DCYF’s conduct could result in the juveniles being released without rehabilitation if a judge were to determine the juvenile offender cannot be legally held by the county for over 30 days and orders them to be released.

Qualms over leadership

The Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice, which has 26 members appointed by the governor, is the designated primary advising state-planning group on juvenile justice to Inslee’s office, as required by federal regulation.

In the letter, the council wrote DCYF has failed to address understaffing, overcrowding and poor conditions in recent years.

The overcrowding – which the department has acknowledged – has been particularly acute at Green Hill School in Chehalis, from where the 43 men were transferred.

The department has said returning the men would put the safety of Green Hill’s staff and residents at risk by returning the population to about 130% of its capacity.

The young men who were transferred to an adult prison all have sentences that extend past their 25th birthdays and would have eventually transferred to the Department of Corrections to serve the remainder of their sentences, according to a DCYF news release.

According to court filings by DCYF staff, some of the men expressed they preferred to remain in DOC custody. Others, however, expressed shock and a loss of trust in the agency.

“It is our responsibility to recognize the failure of DCYF leadership and recommend that Secretary Ross Hunter be removed from his role as the agency head,” the letter stated. The council also called on Inslee and DCYF leaders to formally apologize to the 43 young men, bring together an advisory group to select an interim leader for DCYF and create a strategic approach to resolving the crisis in juvenile detention facilities.

Hunter, a former Microsoft manager and former state representative from Medina, has led DCYF since the Cabinet-level department was created in 2017 to centralize the state’s child-focused programs, including early education, foster care and Child Protective Services.

State Reps. Travis Couture and Mari Leavitt have also called for Hunter to step down on social media. State Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, said in a news release Tuesday that he was concerned about DCYF’s “complete disregard of due process and notice.”

Roughly one year ago, unionized workers at DCYF launched a no-confidence vote against Hunter, also urging Inslee to fire and replace him. That move stemmed from, as workers put it, “ignorance about the work we do and indifference to the issues we raise, all of which have put children and staff at risk,” according to a summary of their grievances. It failed to get enough votes.

Jaime Smith, a spokesperson for Inslee’s office, didn’t directly respond to the calls for Hunter’s removal and wrote Inslee has not responded to the council’s letter. Smith defended DCYF’s “difficult decision” to transfer the men and said leadership is “rightly focusing on safety, first and foremost.”

“Nobody, including the governor, is happy that that required these drastic actions and that there wasn’t better communication with stakeholders and partners,” Smith wrote Thursday.

Smith wrote the situation is “painful” for Inslee as well. He has made clear to Hunter, Smith wrote, that DCYF must now work to get legislative support to add capacity for more young people and hire more staff.

“Secretary Ross Hunter has pursued all available options to provide immediate relief to the conditions on campus,” said a statement from Gutierrez, the DCYF spokesperson. “Our priority and concern will continue to be the safety of staff and young people at our facility.”

Changes in state law

The Partnership Council said JR to 25, the state legislation passed in 2018 that allowed for the 43 young men to still be in juvenile detention past the age of 21, is being criticized by “antiquated, fallacious narratives … rather than the systems that have been poorly positioned and resourced.”

JR to 25 extended juvenile court jurisdiction for people age 16 or 17 up to age 25 for specific offenses.

Neuroscience has shown adolescent brains aren’t fully developed until 25, prompting the U.S. Supreme Court to issue several rulings since 2005 that consider juveniles less culpable than adults for criminal behavior. Science has also noted adolescents possess a higher inclination for rehabilitation than adults.

The department has said the law is part of the reason for the population growth; the other being “unprecedented” spikes in youths admitted to Green Hill in March and April.

“DCYF has contributed to overcrowding by criminalizing the youth whose rehabilitation it is responsible for,” the letter from the council stated.

Mounting problems in juvenile detention

But DCYF leaders, advocates and juvenile justice workers seem to be agreeing on one thing: Juvenile detention has hit a crisis point in Washington.

In court filings, Hunter wrote the overcrowding at Green Hill had become “untenable,” with one staff member being hospitalized due to violence among residents.

The juvenile rehabilitation assistant secretary, Felice Upton, wrote in a court filing that she visited Green Hill in May to find “garbage strewn about the unit, residents banging on the doors of their rooms, (and) upset residents who also threatened staff.” In another unit, she wrote, two residents had broken their room windows and several physically fought staff members.

The letter from the Partnership Council stated that 140 counts of prison riot have come out of Green Hill in the past two years. Nearly 70% of statewide prison riot charges in 2023 were from Lewis County, where Green Hill is located, despite the facility housing only 1% of the state’s incarcerated population.

In May, the King County Department of Public Defense filed a personal restraint petition on behalf of several Green Hill School residents that said the staffing shortages and routine punishment in the facility had led to “unconstitutionally cruel” and illegal conditions of confinement. The petition stated the boys and men were sometimes locked in their rooms all day, and staff often didn’t let them out to use the toilet or made them wait hours.

A resident declared he and others had been given plastic bottles to urinate in by staff every day for the past year. Sometimes they soil themselves, according to the petition.

A letter to Hunter from the Superior Court Judges’ Association of Washington and the Washington Association of Juvenile Court Administrators stated the state’s decision was “completely at odds with its legal obligations.” The letter also stated the population growth was “foreseeable and preventable” and the department “failed to plan.”

In a response, Hunter wrote: “In hindsight, the actions I took were too abrupt and I did not adequately consider the entire juvenile justice system as a whole. I made optimization decisions that only considered the impact on the part of the system I manage.”

DCYF has stated it is preparing proposals for next year’s legislative session to support additional facilities for juvenile detention.