Misconduct at Wayne County juvenile jail almost all staff related

Logan Seacrest, a resident fellow on criminal justice and civil liberties at nonprofit think tank R Street Institute, said with less supervision at a facility such as the JDF, there will be more fights and kids lashing out. When they’ve been cooped up in their rooms because there isn’t enough staff to monitor recreation time, “they’re much more likely to throw a punch at an officer, and then the officer has to respond with force in kind.”

This has led to an increase in uses of force across the country, Seacrest said. With fewer employees working, officers are quicker to resort to using force rather than less violent methods out of desperation, he said…

When a detention center has publicly had issues — like Wayne County’s Juvenile Detention Facility has — it can complicate recruitment and retention, said Logan Seacrest, a resident fellow on criminal justice and civil liberties at nonprofit think tank R Street Institute.

Things have gotten bad across the country, partially because of the strong labor market and low unemployment, Seacrest said. People have more options and don’t want a difficult job when they could be paid the same to work at McDonald’s or Target.

“It might be much more attractive to work in a drive-thru than to get excrement thrown at you or be attacked when you get to work,” Seacrest said. “A lot of the unrest and chaotic situations we’ve seen have been basically kids tired of going to the bathroom in water bottles or not getting showers. It’s hard when you’re so severely understaffed that you can’t even basically monitor the kids appropriately, much less provide for recreation time and so forth.”