CHEHALIS, Wash. — The King County Department of Public Defense (KCDPD) filed a personal restraint petition Thursday on behalf of a client currently being held at the Green Hill School juvenile facility in Chehalis.
The petition said staffing shortages at the Green Hill School said the client has little socialization or programming. According to the petition, the youth must wait hours for their turn to use the bathrooms, leading to them relieving themselves in their units.
The Green Hill School is a state-operated juvenile facility housing older male youth and young adults. The DCYF said the facility includes mental health units, an academic and vocational school, a recreation complex and several other buildings providing support services. According to the state, its mission is to "provide a safe, structured, and secure environment where your youth can learn new skills, develop positive habits, and disengage from the activities that brought them here."
KCDPD director Anita Khandelwal said feedback from clients alleges conditions that do not align with that mission.
"Our young people are suffering," Khandelwal said. "When you talk to them and you hear them talk about what this experience is like for them, they feel dehumanized, and this is not our path to safety. This is not what any of us would want to have happen to our children."
According to the petition filed Thursday, conditions their client faced have "deteriorated over time. He's spent "the vast majority of his time locked alone" experiencing "isolation and suffering and virtually no rehabilitative structure," the petition outlined. Officials said he is held alone for hours, and that youth and young adults must wait hours for a turn to use the restroom because of a lack of staff to address these calls. As a result, they must relieve themselves in their living spaces. One unit does not have running water or toilets.
The petition asked the issues be remedied or clients be released. Khandelwal says they are doing it both because of their former clients and their future ones.
"We want to draw attention to this before our clients get there and hopefully have it remedied," Khandelwal said.
The Washington Department of Children Youth and Facilities (DCYF) said in a statement Thursday it is in the process of reviewing the filings.
In 2019, a federal audit determined staffing levels at Green Hill created dangerous conditions for workers and youth housed there. At the time, the DCYF secretary told KING 5 hiring is a top priority, but turnover and low pay create challenges.
"Young people are sent to Green Hill School for rehabilitation," Khandelwal said. "They have a right to be incarcerated or be detained in a setting where rehabilitation is happening, where they're getting rehabilitative services. The services that, when they are done serving their sentences, are going to enable them to find jobs, to deal with anger, to have that set of skills we need to function in society. They have a right to that, and that's not what they're getting."
Based on conversations with the youth they represent and reviews of the research, Khandelwal said more community support would help. Connecting youth with mentors who approach them in a strengths-based way and offering resources to help them understand their abilities and options in life could prevent future harm, she said.
"But even setting that aside, if we're going to incarcerate them, we need to rehabilitate them," Khandelwal said. "We need to provide them with those services that are going to help them come out healthier for their sakes and all of their sakes. This is how we become a healthier community."