State pays to settle lawsuit Abuses charged at youth center

PORTLAND – The state will pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit by a former resident at the Maine Youth Center whose charges of excessive restraint and isolation led to a management shake-up in the state’s juvenile corrections system.

A resident identified in court papers as Michael T. sued state corrections officials and workers at the former Maine Youth Center, saying he was physically abused as a teenager there during the 1990s.

The lawsuit alleged he was tied in restraints for as long as 49 hours and placed in solitary confinement for 87 days.

“I certainly feel like what we did to this kid was incredibly destructive,” said Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, co-chairman of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee. “I hope his family feels this will be adequate to help him repair some of the damage.”

Many observers said conditions have improved significantly at the Long Creek Youth Development Center, previously the Maine Youth Center.

“With this suit settled, it puts behind us a part of the past that needed very much to be put behind us,” said Daniel Reardon, a volunteer at the center and chairman of a youth center advocate group.

The lawsuit, filed last fall, prompted Gov. John Baldacci to order an independent investigation of practices at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland and Mountain View Youth Development Center in Charleston.

The investigations found that significant improvements have been made since the 1990s and that isolation and restraint are now used less than the national average.

The settlement calls for an immediate payment of $220,000 and then monthly payments of $850 for the next 20 years.

At the conclusion of that period, in 2024, the state will pay the plaintiff another $210,000.

The settlement also pays a $32,000 debt to MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, which covered treatment of what the lawsuit said were injuries developed as a result of Michael T.’s abuse in custody.

It also covers care he received in 1998 and 1999 at a Georgia behavioral treatment facility.

The case has implications beyond past practices of the former Maine Youth Center, says Lisa Thurau-Gray, director of the New England Juvenile Defenders Center at Suffolk University in Boston.

“What’s exciting and important about this case is that it got the state recognizing that it doesn’t matter how beautiful your facility is if the people running it use an approach that harms children,” said Thurau-Gray.

“I think this still raises the issue of what kind of monitoring will be done by the state, including outside people to make sure this does not happen again,” she said.