May 3, 2012: Reporter Dave Maass, at left, writing for San Diego City Beat, has posted an investigative report on the use of pepper spray in San Diego juvenile facilities -- for starters, 461 incidents in 2011, which places San Diego as one "of the highest levels of pepper-spray usage [in the U.S.]." The East Mesa juvenile facility recorded an average of five sprayings a week.
According to the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA), only 14 states allow the use of pepper spray in juvenile facilities, but in most cases, it’s a last-resort measure, limited to riot-level emergencies. Only five of those states, including California, allow staff to carry it on their person, as is the case in San Diego. CJCA notes in its 2011 report on the issue that no studies have been conducted on the safety of using pepper spray on juveniles and that most juvenile correctional agencies shun its use “because of the harm it causes to youths and the negative impact on staff-youth relationships.” ....
In corrections terminology, OC spray is considered a “chemical restraint,” because a face-full of oleoresin capsicum—which is derived from the resin of red peppers—can be as debilitating as a pair of shackles. Under California law, it’s classified as a form of tear gas.....
In recent years, many states have voluntarily traded OC spray for ... techniques designed to de-escalate conflicts. For other jurisdictions, it’s taken lawsuits, federal investigations and court orders. In 2006, San Diego County Probation told The San Diego Union-Tribune that it was weighing sweeping revisions to its pepper-spray policies after a prisoner-rights group threatened legal action.
...San Diego County continues to embrace OC spray, even as nearby Los Angeles County's three juvenile halls have reduced usage from 1,431 OC incidents in 2001 to just 91 incidents in 2011 in the wake of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. San Diego's two juvenile halls experienced 378 incidents in 2011, four times as many for a population half the size. On average, there’s an OC incident in a San Diego juvenile facility every 20 hours. ...If you compare L.A. County's juvenile halls to just San Diego's juvenile halls, the disparity becomes even more stark. L.A. County recorded 91 OC incidents in its three facilities, which have a daily population of roughly 1,130. San Diego County recorded 378 OC incidents in its two facilities, with an average daily population of 517. That means San Diego facilities experienced more than four times as many incidents, even though the juvenile hall populations are less than half the size of L.A.'s....
"That’s a very high number,” John Rhoads, a former top-level juvenile-detention official in both Sacramento and Santa Cruz counties, says of East Mesa. ...Rhoads is currently a Reno-based consultant for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which developed the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a set of standards aimed at reforming juvenile-justice systems to reduce overcrowding and recidivism, as well as the strain on government budgets. Currently, 150 jurisdictions in 32 states are implementing the standards, which also call for banning the use of OC spray....
But the sheer number of OC incidents may indicate that pepper spray is not the when-all-else-fails tool that the county claims. Of the 461 incidents, 67 were classified as “non-fight,” which covers situations such as escape attempts, suicidal behavior or a youth “instigating others to fight,” as well as accidental discharges. Pepper spray is also routinely used when a juvenile refuses to leave his cell. Probation’s “room extraction” policies dictate staff may fog the room with pepper spray, wait a few minutes, then enter and handcuff a ward.
The county’s policies acknowledge that pepper spray can be especially dangerous when used on certain individuals, such as youth who suffer from asthma or are taking psychotropic medication. Probation confirms to CityBeat that OC spray has been used on some “OC Sensitive” wards, but “medical staff noted no lasting adverse effects.”
Don Cipriani, a guest teacher who worked in San Diego’s juvenile facilities in 2009, describes a “culture of maintaining control,” in which he saw staff use the threat of pepper spray regularly to regulate day-to-day obedience, from preventing fights to enforcing how close a ward could stand to another. Juveniles were conditioned to hit the deck when they heard a guard call out “OC.”
Cipriani, now a senior program officer who works on school-discipline issues for Public Interest Projects, a New York-based nonprofit, notes that pepper spray had a direct impact on education. Classes were regularly cancelled due to OC incidents, and education staff would often return to the teachers’ lounge coughing and with irritated eyes because they had been too close to a spraying.
that student had every right to defend himself
Posted by: Linda Torres | 05/05/2012 at 08:55 AM
the police need to be a little more careful when using pepper spray as it affects some people more than others
Posted by: Raymond Torres | 05/07/2012 at 02:34 PM