More trouble likely for WHC
Judge asked to seal youth center report initially
By VICKI FERSTEL
Suburban writer
An
attorney for Wackenhut Corrections Corp. asked U.S.
District Judge Frank Polozola to temporarily seal from the
public a pending federal report about conditions at Jena
Juvenile Justice Center.
"We anticipate that there
will be certain facts and conclusions with which
Wackenhut will seriously disagree," attorney James R.
Chastain Jr. wrote in one of two letters to Polozola in
which he made the request.
Chastain asked
Polozola to seal the record until Wackenhut can respond to
the allegations.
Wackenhut owns and operates
the for-profit juvenile prison, which has had two
near-riots since it opened in December
1998.
Chastain, in the letters, claims Wackenhut was "ambushed"
last month by media coverage of a highly critical
report about conditions at the center.
The
report, by court-appointed prison expert John Whitley,
quoted the preliminary findings of a U.S. Department of
Justice consultant who portrayed the center as "unsafe,
violent and inhumane."
The final findings of the
U.S. Department of Justice and its consultants are
expected to be filed this week in federal court at Baton
Rouge.
Periodic federal reports to Polozola about conditions at
the Jena center and the four other state-level
juvenile centers are filed with the court in the on-going
civil rights litigation against the state. The owners
and operators of the centers are then afforded the
opportunity to file their responses.
Chastain, whose
Baton Rouge law firm, Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson,
represents Wackenhut, complained in a Jan. 20 letter to
Polozola about Whitley�s report.
"We were simply
stunned at the broad sweeping conclusions, many of which
in our opinion are baseless in fact," Chastain
wrote.
"Wackenhut was ambushed in the newspaper (The Advocate),
when these overboard conclusions were made of record,"
he wrote.
Whitley on Tuesday declined to
comment. Justice Department spokeswoman Christine
DiBartolo had no immediate comment
Tuesday.
Chastain�s Jan. 20 and Feb. 14 letters were filed into the
court record on Feb. 15.
The record does not
indicate if Polozola replied. Chastain was not available
Tuesday for further comment.
David Utter, director
of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, called
Chastain�s request "unconstitutional and
outrageous."
The Juvenile Justice Project, a nonprofit advocacy
organization, is one of the plaintiffs in the civil rights
litigation.
"I think the public certainly has a right to know
what�s going on at Jena," Utter said Tuesday when asked
for comment.
"It seems that Wackenhut is more
concerned about the bottom line, as a publicly traded
corporation, than the health and welfare of the kids," Utter
said.
The state pays an average of $70 per juvenile per
day, or about $7 million a year, to house 276 juvenile
offenders at the Jena center.
Chastain, in the Feb.
14 letter, suggested that the news coverage also may
affect the ongoing civil rights litigation settlement
negotiations.
"We believe that these negotiations can best be
concluded in an atmosphere of cooperation without media
involvement," Chastain wrote.
Rick Curry, the special
assistant attorney general who represents the state in this
matter, said Tuesday when contacted for comment that he
"can�t really identify any instance" when news coverage
affected the negotiations.
Curry said the state has
not been asked to either support or dispute
Wackenhut�s request to temporarily seal the
record.
Curry, however, said he can appreciate Wackenhut�s
request.
"In the past the (Justice Department) reports have
somewhat mischaracterized and exaggerated conditions at
the facilities," Curry said.