Colorado juvenile detention centers need better surveillance, ombudsman finds

Colorado’s juvenile detention centers lack important surveillance tools when determining whether staff justifiably use physical restraints on teens in their care, according to a new report issued Tuesday.

An issue brief from the Office of the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman recommends the state’s Division of Youth Services add audio recordings, in addition to existing video, in order to fully evaluate encounters between staff and youth. Currently, state detention facilities only record images without any sound.

“Youth living within Colorado’s DYS youth centers deserve to be kept safe,” the report states. “When they have concerns about their safety or how they are being treated, they have a right to have those complaints heard by an independent agency.”

The ombudsman’s office included several examples in which staff injured teens while physically restraining them. In written reports following the incident, staff said the youth made verbal threats or failed to follow commands.

But without audio, reviewers had no way to independently assess whether the restraint was justified, the brief notes.

“Until we have a full understanding of what’s happening in the field, we can’t possibly diagnose the problem — let alone the solution,” Stephanie Villafuerte, the state’s child protection ombudsman, said in an interview.

Teens told the office that they support improving surveillance systems in youth centers, saying they believe staff know the cameras’ blind spots. Youth also said staff use the lack of audio to make threats or intimidate them — actions that cannot be proven after the fact.

Between March 2023 and August 2023, 465 different teens experienced a restraint technique approximately 4,614 times, according to state data included in the brief. Black youth represented 38% of the restraints but only 23% of the centers’ population, a trend the report’s authors called “troubling.”