Do Youths Face Significant Safety Risks at Juvenile Detention Facilities? Attorney Matthew Brown from Combs Waterkotte discusses the safety risks youths face when placed in a juvenile detention facility. Juvenile Criminal Defense Lawyers in Missouri.
Jessica Ambuehl: Have you found that youths actually face any risks at detention facilities?
Matt Brown: I think that just kind of depends. Whether we’re talking about a youth detention facility or an adult prison, I think it’s pretty common knowledge that all those types of facilities are severely understaffed and the staff is underpaid.
Anytime someone is locked up or detained with someone else who has committed crimes, you never know about somebody’s history, what they’re capable of.
In my opinion and with my experiences in being in these facilities and seeing these facilities, anybody that’s detained for a long period of time is at risk of being either perpetrated on by another offender, or being the victim of another crime while you’re in these types of facilities.
Jessica Ambuehl: Do you ever get to help in those situations if you’re already representing them?
Matt Brown: We’ve certainly taken cases where somebody’s been charged with committing a crime while inside one of these facilities. If it’s our client that may have been a victim, we certainly try to do everything that we can as far as making phone calls, filing motions, getting in front of a judge to maybe try to get this person transferred to another facility.
It’s very situation specific, because it can also be difficult to get someone transferred to a different facility, especially a juvenile facility because there’s there’s just not very many places in the state of Missouri where a juvenile can go.
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