‘Cruel and Unusual:’ North Carolina Agency Facing Class Action Over Use of Juvenile Solitary Confinement

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action alleges the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) has unconstitutionally kept children who have not had their cases adjudicated yet in solitary confinement for nearly 24 hours a day at juvenile detention centers throughout the state.

Want to stay in the loop on class actions that matter to you? Sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.

The 57-page lawsuit claims that despite being “fully aware” of the “profoundly harmful” and long-term effects solitary confinement has on children, the NCDPS and its secretary, Eddie M. Buffaloe, Jr., have coped with understaffing for the past year at some state-run facilities by not allowing children to leave their cells for more than a few minutes a day. 

The case focuses specifically on the treatment of children at the Cabarrus Regional Juvenile Detention Center and the Dillon Regional Juvenile Detention Center, both of which house youths as young as 10 years old, often for weeks or months at a time, as they wait to go to court or until a placement can be arranged.

According to the filing, children detained at the Cabarrus Juvenile Jail “have little to nothing to do in their cells to advance their development and growth: no meaningful human interaction, no education or programming to address their developmental, physical, and clinical needs, and limited reading materials.”

The filing claims that children spend nearly all their time alone in closet-sized cells, except for a 10-minute shower they’re permitted most days. Although the Cabarrus Juvenile Jail purportedly lets children out of their cells twice a week for 30 minutes of “recreation time,” two of the case’s three plaintiffs, all teenagers detained at the North Carolina facility, say they haven’t been allowed this time. Otherwise, kids may only temporarily leave their cells to get water, help clean the jail or take 10-minute phone calls on certain days, the case says.

The complaint adds that only a few children a day are allowed to attend “school” at the Cabarrus Juvenile Jail, which involves listening to a video lesson on a laptop for half an hour to an hour.

Per the complaint, children at the Dillon Juvenile Jail are in their cell for 23 hours and 40 minutes of the day and are let out only to shower or make a phone call. “The children’s only education is crossword puzzles and word searches slipped under their cell door a few times a week,” the suit shares.

The suit—which also names as defendants William L. Lassiter, the deputy secretary of the Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Peter Brown, the facility director at the Cabarrus Juvenile Jail—stresses that children placed in isolation face a significant risk of “serious and irreparable” physical, psychological and emotional harm.

As the case tells it, solitary confinement is known to perpetuate, worsen or trigger a variety of mental health concerns in juveniles, including post-traumatic stress disorders, psychosis, anxiety disorders, depression, paranoia and long-term trust issues.

Although children are often locked at the Cabarrus and Dillon Juvenile Jails for weeks or months at a time, research shows that solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days may lead to “irreversible damage,” the lawsuit relays.

Ultimately, the filing alleges the defendants have violated children’s Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by, respectively, subjecting them to “cruel and usual punishment” and denying them state-mandated educational services.

The lawsuit looks to represent any juveniles who are currently, or in the future will be, detained in a North Carolina juvenile detention facility operated by NCDPS.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.