When Lloyd Warford, now DHS counsel, first inspected the state's main jail for juveniles in North Little Rock in April 1997, it was filthy. The walls were dirty, the floors were dirty, the place smelled of sweat and urine. Formerly a men's jail, there is no cafeteria and no gym for the youths. Meals are served in cells. Edgy youths get little activity.
Sources say that medication is dispensed haphazardly.
A high official says staff even, on occasion, withheld medicine as punishment. But the facility has housed up to 130 juveniles at a time, and held some for 90 days, twice as long as anticipated when the facility was opened. The inmates have been accused of everything from misdemeanors to murder, but apparently the only segregation of inmates has been by physical size, not age or offense. In November 1995, just a few months after the facility opened, an internal DYS review of the jail declared it inappropriate for juveniles. The most serious allegation behind the spring 1997 shake-up was that a boy had beaten by older juveniles at the instruction of staff and later sodomized with a broom handle.