Judge orders two Wisconsin youth detention centers to improve conditions

By Julia Jacobs

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday ordered two Wisconsin youth correctional facilities to reform conditions for their detainees, who are subjected to pepper spraying and "likely unconstitutional" confinement, according to court documents.

The preliminary injunction requires the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to reach an agreement on detainee treatment with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Juvenile Law Center, which in January sued the state over conditions at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and the Copper Lake School for Girls.

As many as 20 percent of detainees at the facilities are held in solitary confinement for all but one or two hours each day, the lawsuit alleged, and officers "repeatedly and excessively" use pepper spray and routinely handcuff detainees.

The state argued that the "restrictive housing" employed at the centers should not be considered solitary confinement, and that the use of pepper spray and restraints was not excessive, according to a brief filed by the defendants last month.

U.S. District Judge James Peterson wrote in Friday's decision that the state should aim to limit isolation time to a maximum of five to seven days, reduce or eliminate the use of pepper spray, and only employ mechanical restraints when needed to ensure safety.

Peterson added that allowing detainees only one hour outside a cell per day is "likely unconstitutional." He ordered the parties in the lawsuit to agree within two weeks on how to improve conditions at the facilities, which share a campus in Irma in northeastern Wisconsin.

The plaintiffs filed the motion asking for the preliminary injunction in April.

"We felt the kids were in such harm that, even before the resolution of the lawsuit, we were asking the court to take immediate action," said Jessica Feierman, attorney for the Juvenile Law Center.

Wisconsin Department of Corrections spokesman Tristan Cook said in a statement on Friday that the department has been working to implement reforms at the centers and will use the two-week period to further that work.

The facilities, which held 174 inmates as of last week, according to state documents, have been subject to scrutiny before. In 2015, the state's attorney's office and the FBI began investigating allegations about the facilities, including child neglect and sexual assault. Law enforcement agents raided Lincoln Hills at the end of the year, local media reported.

(Reporting by Julia Jacobs in Chicago; Editing by Patrick Enright and Jonathan Oatis)