Guards for kids have records
Convictions found for 24 juvenile center workers
By Richard D. Walton and Tim Evans
richard.walton@indystar.com
More than a quarter of employees who supervise youths at the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center have criminal convictions, according to a court official appointed to clean up problems at the center.
The center checked the backgrounds of 88 employees and found 24 with criminal records.
Eight of those workers have been suspended without pay for having serious offenses such as battery, drug possession and theft on their records.
Sixteen other employees will be kept on for now but face possible disciplinary action. The rest of the center's staff, about a dozen people who generally don't have contact with children, will undergo background checks next week.
Robert Bingham, Marion County's chief probation officer, who is assigned to reform the center, said pre-employment criminal background checks either were not conducted for at least 15 years or were sloppily and inconsistently performed, and that is "outrageous."
Failing to perform checks on new employees is counter to national standards for juvenile facilities, he said.
Friday's announcement brings to 34 the number of current or former Detention Center workers who in recent weeks have been criminally charged, suspended without pay or face scrutiny.
The eight suspended employees include guard Gates Robertson, 55, who was arrested on drug charges Wednesday.
In April, nine former Detention Center employees were charged with sexual misconduct with underage female detainees. The center's superintendent, Damon Ellison, was charged with concealing evidence and failing to report the allegation to child welfare authorities. He has resigned.
Bingham said responsibility for performing past background checks rested with Ellison and his then-boss, former juvenile court Judge James Payne.
Payne left the juvenile court post in early 2005 to head the Indiana Department of Child Services, the agency responsible for protecting Indiana's children. Eleven of the 24 found to have criminal records were hired after Payne left office, including five since Bingham's appointment in April.
Bingham blamed confusion during the leadership transition for the lack of checks on some recent hires.
Payne said Friday that all workers hired under his tenure underwent background checks.
"Everybody who was employed went through the county personnel . . . and the policy was that everybody went through a criminal check," he said.
"I don't know that anyone could have slipped through."
The county Personnel Department closed when city and county human resources functions were merged Jan. 1 and hiring became the responsibility of the Indianapolis Department of Administration and Equal Opportunity. Criminal record checks are required for all new city and county employees, but officials could not be reached Friday to explain how workers with convictions had been hired since January.
Payne acknowledged that the center had hired some workers with criminal histories and said that was done with knowledge of their records.
"In juvenile court, we believed in rehabilitation, and we looked at those offenses as part of that," he said. "I know we had some people there with criminal records. But those criminal records -- some of those were long ago; others were so minor as to be insignificant."
Thirteen of the workers with criminal records were hired during Payne's tenure, including Robertson.
Five others who got jobs under Payne were convicted of some or all of their crimes after they were hired.
Payne said his staff evaluated the offenses of prospective employees with criminal records to determine whether the incidents were serious or repetitive enough to disqualify applicants.
"I left that to the staff to figure out through interviews and other things," he said.
Bingham agreed that a minor criminal offense need not disqualify an applicant. "It depends on the circumstances. . . . We're supposed to be about giving people a new start."
Jane Jankowski, a spokeswoman for Gov. Mitch Daniels, who appointed Payne to his current job, declined to comment on Friday's developments.
Bingham said he ordered background checks for all current employees at the center after learning the checks might not have been done at the time of hiring.
"It is outrageous. It angers me," Bingham said "This never should have happened."
The 88 workers whose records were examined this week represented staff who worked most closely with juveniles at the center. Those who had criminal convictions were 17 youth managers, the equivalent of guards; six assistant shift managers; and one shift manager. The workers were hired from February 1991 through last week.
A recent report on the Detention Center by the National Partnership for Juvenile Services cited a staff turnover rate approaching 100 percent, overuse of room confinement to discipline residents, and too few surveillance cameras.
The report also cited a history of gang behavior at the center, contraband problems and poor youth supervision.
Detention Center officials have taken steps to improve security. These include the installation of a "hotline" that detainees can call if they feel threatened, reinforcing the rule that only female guards are to transport female residents, and boosting the starting pay of guards to $24,500 to attract high-quality employees.
Bingham said about 25 guards have been hired in recent weeks. However, with the new employee suspensions, the center is short 18 to 20 staffers. Probation Department workers will help fill the void until more people can be hired.
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