Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 18, 1990 TAG: 9006180263
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium
"We're not going to let them control us," Sheriff Gary W. Waters said. "We're going to do everything we can to control them."
For the past few months, five or six teen-age boys have been in the jail. They became a discipline problem, throwing uneaten food onto the floor, failing to clean up their cells and taunting deputies, Waters said.
He said the youths stayed up all night shouting and banging on the bars, and deputies took away their mattresses during the day so they would sleep at night.
When the behavior did not stop after jailers took away privileges including television, telephone calls and family visits, officials resorted to the "food balls," a congealed mixture of meat, vegetables and other nutrients.
One youth inmate told his mother it looked like dog food.
Waters said the food ball provided all the nutrients the state requires, and that it is less trouble for the deputies to clean up if the inmates started throwing it.
For now, officials said the hostilities have subsided and the teens awaiting trial have recovered some of their privileges.
Relatives of four young inmates said they had received phone calls in the past week, the first calls in three months for some of the inmates. Visitors are again allowed. And the food balls have been replaced with regular jail food.
But some relatives and prison advocates said the jail staff went too far.
"Jailhouse security is a legitimate concern," said Stephen B. Pershing, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, "but it sounds as though they're doing all they can to break the spirit of these young people in the name of jail security."
Nora Goodman said she was able to visit her son at the Portsmouth jail recently for the first time in weeks.
"He'd lost a lot of weight," said Goodman, whose 17-year-old son is being held on malicious-wounding charges. "That's no way to treat 17-year-old boys. If you treat them like animals, that's just going to make them worse."
The law allows judges to send offenders 15 or older to jail if their crimes are severe enough that they will be tried as an adult or if they would pose a risk to other youths at a detention home. They must be kept in an area separate from adult inmates.
"It was a gradual thing," said Capt. Joseph Lilley, the jail's internal affairs officer. "It ended up so they didn't have any privileges left. They only had their rights." He said the food ball was used for about two days, when he took over the case.
Lilley said he met individually with each youth and advised them to start behaving if they wanted to regain their privileges.
"They haven't even raised their voices in two weeks," Lilley said.
by CNB