Douglas County leads statewide increase

Juvenile facilities began reporting quarterly room confinement data to the Nebraska Legislature after senators passed Legislative Bill 894 in 2016. Since then, the Office of Inspector General of Nebraska Child Welfare has compiled data in an annual report, which is provided to the Legislature. That four-person office investigates incidents and misconduct in the entire state’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. 

The 2023-24 facility data revealed “concerning trends” in room confinement use, according to the report. Compared to the previous year, there was a 110% increase in total confinement hours and a 48% increase in total confinement incidents.

“Based on the data alone, it appears that these increases are contrary to Nebraska law,” the report said. 

Seven of the eight juvenile facilities in Nebraska reported increases in confinement hours, including the Douglas County Youth Center. It alone was responsible for 57% of the total 119,300 confinement hours, according to the report, meaning youth at the Omaha facility spent a combined total of nearly 8 years in confinement.

Douglas County is Nebraska’s largest county by population.

The center also holds youth in confinement for the longest of any Nebraska facilities, the 2023-24 report shows. 

Douglas County Youth Center’s average incident time was 145 hours and 42 minutes, or roughly six days, which is the longest average in Douglas County’s history, dating back to 2016 when record keeping began. 

‘Making it all worse’

The increases in confinement use raise alarm bells for youth advocates like Anahí Salazar, policy coordinator at the nonprofit Voices for Children. Salazar said the data leads her to believe that facilities aren’t following current law.

“If you’re using it as a timeout, then a young person doesn’t need to be in there for six hours,” Salazar said.

Facilities are also required to report the reason a youth is in confinement. In 2023-24, Douglas County reported that 221 room confinement incidents were used to address fighting; another 189 addressed assault or attempted assault.

Salazar said she hopes facilities are working to calm youth before putting them directly in confinement after engaging in aggressive behaviors.

Failing to speak with youth about their behavior while keeping them confined only increases the likelihood they’ll repeat the behavior, she said. 

“If you’re not providing that for these young people…within, you know, an hour, two hours, three,” Salazar continued, “then I just think it’s making it all worse.”

The 17-year-old central Omahan, who said he was confined six times, said there aren’t many opportunities for youth to speak with staff about coming out of lockdown.

“We don’t really have much of a voice in it,” he said. “Whatever they say happens. There isn’t really nothing that we can say that’s going to change it.”

Woodard said that while his staff tries alternative methods to resolve issues with youth, confinement is sometimes necessary for safety – especially when violence stems from gang-related issues and conflicts that started outside of the facility.  

“A lot of the violence that takes place in the Omaha community is generational,” Woodard said. “It comes from things that have happened years ago.”

If teens get into a conflict over a basketball game, staff can usually help them work it out through conversation, he said. 

When a gang-affiliated teen in the facility sees someone they consider an enemy, Woodard said the teen is more determined to cause harm. In these cases, he said, talking things through or using positive rewards often isn’t enough to keep everyone safe.

“If a kid is really angry, they really don’t care about it,” Woodard said. “We can only give them so many bags of chips and positive reinforcement.”

‘Really big trigger’ for youth with mental health issues

Over 70% of youth in the U.S. juvenile justice system have mental health conditions, with 30% of those youth having severe conditions, according to The Council of State Governments Justice Center. 

Monica Miles-Steffens, compliance coordinator at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Juvenile Justice Institute, said it’s important that facilities recognize the psychological impact of confinement. 

“Putting a kid in isolation can be really harmful,” Miles-Steffens said. “Especially young people who have mental health concerns.”

In 2024, the American Psychological Association formally opposed the use of “harmful individual isolation” in juvenile facilities and adopted 10 recommendations, several of which Nebraska has already incorporated into state law, such as documenting its use and using it in a time-limited manner. 

Miles-Steffens said facility staff also need to recognize past experiences of youth, such as trauma during childhood. 

“Some of these kids with crossover issues in child welfare, they were removed from their families because of very traumatic neglect and abuse situations where they might have been placed in isolation for extended periods of time,” Miles-Steffens said. “It can be a really big trigger for those kids in that trauma.”

System crossover is common. A 2021 study led by criminologist Denise Herz found that two-thirds of youth involved in Los Angeles County’s justice system had previously interacted with the child welfare system. 

Tarika Daftary-Kapur, a researcher at Montclair State University in New Jersey, has focused her work on juvenile justice and adolescent decision making. 

Research shows that confinement can have lasting mental harm on young people, she said. 

“Solitary or room confinement for children, and even adults, for long, sustained periods of time can lead to depression, it can lead to anxiety,” Daftary-Kapur said. “Because they have higher levels of developmental vulnerability…they are at an even heightened risk of having these sorts of adverse reactions.”

Educational access limited

Nebraska law requires juveniles in confinement to have the same access to education as the general population. 

Douglas County Youth Center’s daily schedule includes classes in the morning and afternoon, during which teachers instruct youth in person and through learning packets. 

The central Omaha teen said teachers were his favorite staff. 

“They’ll sit there and talk to you about anything,” he said. 

During a 30-day period he spent on lockdown, he said he didn’t interact with teachers or fill out the daily packets, because he wasn’t allowed a pencil in his cell.

Christine Henningsen, associate director of Nebraska’s Center on Children, Families and the Law, previously worked as a public defender in Douglas County. She said staff at the Douglas County Youth Center have told her that youth in confinement aren’t allowed to leave their rooms for classes. 

“If you’re in room confinement, what I was told is you’re not let out, but you can listen (to teachers) at the window,” Henningsen said. “And you could knock on the window and hold up a worksheet and try and get feedback from the teacher from the other side of your door.”

Douglas County Youth Center provides additional reading materials to youth through its library services, but the Bennington teen said the library is unavailable to youth while in lockdown.

“You got to just hope somebody will go get a book for you,” he said. “And then hope it can fit under the door.”

Each situation is handled individually, Woodard said. Teens who write on the walls or make weapons with pencils may get items taken away, he said. 

“There’s way more factors than this just being simple,” Woodard said.

Family visits

The law also states that youth in confinement must have the same access to visits with legal guardians. 

However, the Douglas County Youth Center’s website specifies that youth in “restrictive housing” are only allowed to have visits in the facility’s admissions area, and these visits may be restricted from an hour to 30 minutes due to “space availability.” Youth who are not in confinement receive two one-hour visits each week, according to the facility’s website. 

The main visitation area, the North Omaha teen said, has multiple tables and vending machines, and multiple youth are able to have visits at a time. He said the admissions visit area is only large enough for one youth and two visitors at a time.

“In the other room, it’s like the cell,” the 16-year-old said.

Youth in confinement are strip-searched before a family visit, which the central Omaha teen said doesn’t occur with general population visits.

“A lot of kids would miss out on their visit, because they know they’re going to get strip-searched,” he said. 

The Benson teen said strip searches are typically only used when youth first arrive at the facility. During his time in confinement, he said he passed up multiple visits with family to avoid going through the experience. 

“Some people might not be comfortable with it,” he said. “There may be trauma behind it.”

The North Omaha teen said certain staff members made him feel especially uncomfortable during those searches.

“I don’t know if a strip search is supposed to go like that, but they just get to looking all at you and stuff,” he said. 

Woodard said youth in confinement are strip-searched after visits because these visits happen in a room that is not supervised by staff, nor is the room monitored with a camera. Strip searches are necessary to prevent contraband from entering the facility, he said. 

“We already have parents who are in regular visitation who are bringing in contraband,” Woodard said.

The Nebraska Crime Commission, a state government agency, defines a strip search as “an examination of a resident’s naked body for weapons, contraband, injuries or vermin infestations,” and the commission’s juvenile standards say all searches shall be the least intrusive type necessary for a facility’s safety. A pat search, with clothes on, should be the initial way to search youth, according to the juvenile standards.

Advocates: More oversight needed

Reflecting on her previous work as a public defender, Henningsen said she wasn’t fully aware of the prevalence of room confinement before the annual reports started in 2016. 

“Looking back, I wish it was something I would have been regularly asking my clients about, but it was not anything that anyone even talked about,” Henningsen said. 

Mandating the annual reports was a step in the right direction in holding facilities accountable to the law, she said.

“That, in and of itself, I think dramatically reduced the amount it was used, because they’re like, ‘Oh, somebody’s looking at it,’” Henningsen said.

While the inspector general for Nebraska’s adult prisons conducts regular in-person facility visits, the child welfare inspector general relies on self-reported facility data when creating the juvenile room confinement report.

“We don’t have the authority right now to go in and say, ‘When there was this confinement, what really happened?’ and make sure it was a safety and security reason,” said Jennifer Carter, the state’s inspector general for child welfare. “We’re just looking at what the facilities are self-reporting.”