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| Miss. juvenile facilities, feds reach care agreement |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/09/2005 |
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Mississippi has reached a settlement with federal officials over allegations of abuse at juvenile facilities, where offenders were sometimes hogtied or forced to eat their own vomit, authorities said last Wednesday. Under the agreement, Mississippi has to improve its special education, mental health, medical and suicide prevention programs at Oakley Training School and Columbia Training School - the two facilities where the abuse was alleged, Attorney General Jim Hood said. A paramilitary program at the training schools will continue, but students with mental health or physical problems will be excluded. R. Alexander Acosta, the assistant attorney general for civil rights for the Justice Department, said a juvenile justice expert will monitor the state's progress under the four-year decree. He said the settlement lays out guidelines, but the Justice Department won't micromanage the state program. "Mississippi is taking the lead on what works here," Acosta said. The settlement provisions also include more money for the two campuses, said I. Lanier Avant, chief of staff for Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat. "While the settlement agreement reached by the Justice Department and the state is not perfect, it does represent the return of some semblance of decency to the juvenile justice system," Thompson said in a statement. |
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