South Iowa News

The Boys State Training School in Eldora, a juvenile detention center in Iowa, allegedly violated due process and other rights by not having proper mental health care, but a Chicago law firm secured reforms for the center's treatment. 

Ropes & Gray LLP law firm represented minors in the juvenile detention center, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. Lawyers from the firm claimed the detention center allegedly violated constitutional rights by not providing proper mental health care and by using confinement and restraint called "the wrap," according to the Bulletin.  

”The culmination of the [s]chool’s many failures to treat students’ mental illnesses, taken together, create substantial risks of serious harm,” U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Rose wrote in her ruling. “Failure to treat mental illness increases the risks of deterioration of mental health, self-harm or suicide, more restrictive (and thus more harmful) placements, and criminal or delinquent recidivism.”

Rose's ruling gave injunctive relief to the plaintiffs in her court ruling, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

In her ruling she also said solitary confinement for the detention center shouldn't exceed one hour, which is consistent with the American Correctional Association's standards. Rose also said "the wrap," which is a mattress on a metal bed frame used to strap juveniles down, is now forbidden to be used, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. 

“Based on the record in this case, the [c]ourt joins other courts that have found a facility does not meet its constitutional obligation to provide medical care to detainees when, in the case of mental illness, it fails to augment psychotropic medication with necessary psychotherapy,” Rose wrote in her ruling.

The school now has to submit a plan to explain to the court its plan on giving therapy to the juveniles and how it will keep medical records, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

Timothy Farrell and Nicholas Berg, Ropes & Gray partners, represented the plaintiffs. Farrell said it was "an incredibly brave thing" for the boys in the center to step forward with the violations, the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reports. 

“They should feel tremendous vindication and satisfaction knowing they were able to lead the charge in bringing about real change at an institution that was not doing right by them,” he told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.