Hingham District Court Among Those That Violated Law Protecting Juveniles in Holding Area

Hingham District Court has been included in a list of courthouses in Massachusetts that have violated a federal law that requires courthouses to protect juveniles from being verbally abused or threatened by adult prisoners in holding areas.

The Boston Globe reports that the state will apply for a federal grant to cover half of the $1.34 million needed to fix 11 courthouses that were the most serious violators according to an internal audit.

“We’re moving as reasonably quickly as we can to get this situation solved,” Massachusetts Trial Court administrator Lewis H. “Harry” Spence told the Globe, who called the problem “pretty large scale.”

In Hingham, juveniles could be chained to a heating pole if the cells were filled. Adults and youths were kept so close together that physical contact was possible, with an officer expressing concern in a 2008 report.

While the cells are kept under surveillance, adults in the cells could still see and interact with the juveniles.

Under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, juveniles in custody are suppose to be separate, and should not be able to see, hear, or have any contact with adult inmates. State officials have known about the problems since at least 1999 when a review of court facilities reported the “sight and sound” violations.

With the issues not resolved by fiscal year 2011, the Justice Department started levying a 20 percent cut in federal grants against the state for not addressing the problems surrounding the violations.

Those penalties have resulted in about $500,000 in cuts according to the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.