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Juvenile detainees locked in controversial device ‘when verbal de-escalation is not working’

Scott Tanner, Juvenile Detention Ombudsman, experiences the WRAP restraint system in the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center in Danville, AR. (Photos obtained via Freedom of Information Act.)

ARKANSAS — Juvenile detention facilities across the state are coming under fire for using a disturbing restraint device that some are calling “torture.”

The device is known as the “WRAP” system. According to state officials, the device is used to restrain minor detainees “when verbal deescalation is not working” — sometimes for hours on end.

The system involves binding a child’s arms and legs together using straps and handcuffs, and sometimes involves shrouding the child’s face with a hood or a helmet.

Photos from the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center in Danville, Arkansas, have raised eyebrows following their exposure through a FOIA request. Questions are being raised about whether the treatment is ethical or humane.

The Danville facility has been shown to strap detainees with a mask which appears to be covered with duct tape and decorated as a cartoonish, dehumanizing cross-eyed effigy.

Scott Tanner, Juvenile Detention Ombudsman, experiences the WRAP restraint system in the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center in Danville, AR. (Photos obtained via Freedom of Information Act.)

State Juvenile Ombudsman Scott Tanner was sent to investigate the device, and tested it himself. He reported that “the WRAP caused difficulty breathing and increased anxiety. He also says it presents a risk for head injury and violates state standards, which say any placement of juveniles must be therapeutic and not punitive.”

Tanner said that the treatment was humiliating and traumatizing, as it was done in front of other detainees.

His report continued: “I believe the manner in which the WRAP restraint is being used in your center creates significant liability. This is magnified by deficiencies in both policy and documentation. Based on my own experience in this restraint and interviews of youth similarly restrained, it is my opinion that the use of the WRAP restraint on youth is inappropriate.”

“It is torture. This should not happen to kids,” the ombudsman said in an interview.

5 COMMENTS

  1. A school where my son used to go has a chair with a restraint harness, probably to reduce incidence of disruption. It’s now being brought into question.

  2. I’ve lived in Arkansas, went to Jr. High there (before the invention of Middle School).
    Glad to be out.
    Remember, both Bill Clinton and Mike Dingleberry have been deciders in Arkansas.

  3. Sodomy is as Sodomy Does. Gimp Gump Pulp Forrest Fiction.

    Not that good of a parody, but at least they tried. Perhaps they’ll become good enough to charge money and make profit. It is perhaps a mark of dishonor when one cannot write, act, and GoPro such things on one’s own.

    We are mere consumers of culture. Not masters of art and stylized depictings of our surrounding reality. It seems pathetic. Where are our plays and stories. Ayn Rand was a doer. Choose her in the marketplace of ideas or reject her, but at least she was not some non-market cultural celibate lashing out at others who took a chance.

    The greatest philosophers of our day, might be the Anarcho-Primitives you see laying all around on the pavement guzzling Mad Dog 20/20 and scoffing at us while we scoff and gaze in horror at them.

    Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics who came afterwards thought civilisation made us sick by making us worry too much what other people think of us. We end up putting all our effort into our image, while desperately hiding any parts of our psyche that might make us look bad or ridiculous.

    The Animals of the Agora, the Cynics tried to free themselves from this crippling self-consciousness by attacking our over-developed sense of shame. They de-sensitised themselves to public ridicule, by habituating themselves to it, so it no longer frightened them. Indeed, it became a badge of pride among them to be laughed at and mocked by the public.
    – – –

    Deification of the Planets. Everything in the Velikovsky archive is interesting to consider.

    • Tor, there is a large amount of people trying to rehabilitate the cops and prison systems along with the pubic schools in Tx. So we finally get some legislation passed to change public schools from using cops to “fix” students they don’t like. In the first year, juvenile arrests plummeted 83%. If this keeps up, the prison for profit bunch is going to take a big financial hit. And here Shrubco did everything they could to put big money into Republican hands for things as corrupt as incarcerating entire families. Well, whatta you gonna do? Somebody talks back to a cop so you just lock up the whole damned bunch, children, babies and all. Now that’s what I call a money=making adventure.

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