On November 8, 1993, Wayne County, Michigan, the county operating Wayne County Youth Home, filed a lawsuit against the Wayne County Probate Court in the Circuit Court for the County of Wayne pursuant to Michigan state law. The plaintiffs, represented by then Wayne County Corporation Counsel Jennifer Granholm, alleged that the Probate Court's practices created severe overcrowding in the Wayne County Youth Home (later called Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility [JDF]), a juvenile detention facility in Detroit, Michigan. The complaint requested that the court issue a writ of superintending control/prohibition to give the plaintiff discretion to control the population of the JDF.

After the lawsuit was filed, on March 21, 1994, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) notified the state of Michigan that it intended to investigate the conditions of confinement at the JDF pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997 et seq. Federal investigators visited the facility in April of that year.

The investigation focused on allegations regarding physical and psychological abuse of residents; failure to properly investigate and curtail sexual abuse of residents by staff; improper disciplinary practices; inadequate staffing and supervision; inadequate medical care, mental health care, and suicide prevention measures; environmental health and safety deficiencies; lack of classification; overcrowding; inadequate access to telephones, mail, general reading material and legal books; and inadequate educational services.

On December 21, 1994, the DOJ issued its findings letter, wherein it described numerous conditions at the WCJDF that violated the constitutional and federal statutory rights of the juveniles detained there. Those conditions included the areas of (1) operational, management, staffing, and programming deficiencies; (2) inadequate medical care, mental health care, dental healthcare, and suicide prevention measures; (3) serious environmental and health deficiencies and (4) numerous fire safety deficiencies. The DOJ outlined minimal remedial measures that the JDF needed to immediately undertake to correct the problems.

After the beginning of the investigation in April of 1994, but before the DOJ released its findings, the county entered into an agreement with the Wayne County Prosecutor and the probate court to limit the population of youths sent to the JDF.

But the agreement apparently did not solve the county's problems. On June 16, 1995, Wayne County and the Wayne County Youth Home filed for a second writ of superintending control over the Probate Court. The plaintiffs filed for this second writ because the population limits set in the agreement were never followed, and the probate court consistently took longer than the agreed upon time to process paperwork for either releasing juveniles or for transferring them to state custody. The plaintiffs requested that the court declare that the director of the JDF have the exclusive power to establish and maintain the maximum capacity of the facility and that the probate court be required to involve the director in all decisions to admit juveniles.

On June 21, 1995 the parties entered into a preliminary agreement to cap the JDF's population at 175. The agreement specifically detailed the procedures that would be followed to ensure that the population stays under this number. The agreement also provided for fifty electronic monitors to be used for lower risk juveniles that were released to meet population limits. We do not have any further information about the case.

Emilee Baker - 05/16/2006
Jonah Hudson-Erdman - 09/05/2021


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