And if you had to just sort of
sum it up in a paragraph. How
has Green Hill changed in the years you've
been there? Well, the level of
violence is definitely increased.
For residents, pretty much
had a code where they would fight,
but staff got involved.
They would immediately stop.
Now not only don't they stop,
the staff get involved there pushing us away.
Escaping from us in some cases are
turning around, confronting us.
In some cases,
turning around and hitting us,
we're getting the most violent and
aggressive youth in the state,
the one that committed the worst crimes.
Murderers, rapists, kidnappers,
those type of things so it's no
longer the population I dealt
with when I started 23 years ago.
We'd literally have kids who came in for
having a suspended license and driving.
That's not the case now,
when every resident in there has some
type of violent offense in their history,
how did we get from there? The back
in the old days to hear where we
are now. Well, in the perception of staff,
we used to have a very strict
sanctioning guidelines.
We have what we call the standard
rules of conduct and they were
ranked by level from one to five.
Five was the most egregious
then went away from that system
and it's a lot blurrier now. So
administration isn't allowing you
to hold the kids accountable.
That is the perception of the staff. Yes,
admin will tell you a different story,
but we're not being given the tools.
We feel that we need.
In order to call them properly
accountable for their actions,
and so because of that,
residents start to feel emboldened.
But I didn't get punished for this.
I didn't have a sanction for this,
so I'm going to do this now.
So that line of where the consequences
eventually lands on them is getting
pushed further and further forward.
And that makes that very uneasy.
That's why staff are leaving
'cause they're like. Well,
I don't know what I can do to these kids,
stop their behavior.
So I'm going to leave.
Staff turnover is terrible.
When I started there,
they said you'll be lucky if
you get a permanent job in two
years and in order to ship
you have to work for 10 years.
Now we're literally hiring staff
off the street in today's spot.
They ship counselor spots 'cause
nobody wants to work here,
so that's one of the biggest changes
is how much of a turnover we have
in our staff and the sense of.
Staff not feeling safe at work.
How
do you feel safety wise when you go to
work? I don't feel safe.
I don't feel like on the whole
that the Green Hill is safe,
but there's a lot of
residents to have in my unit.
Have poor impulse control and
they will even assault staff that
they like once they get you know,
basic kind of in a psychotic mood.
And so there's always that possibility
in some of the writeups.
There is what was described as
a riot in the central kitchen
in May. That was pretty bad there was.
A group of residents from one
living unit and there primarily
the gang members were serenos,
and there was another living unit
eating up there and they were members
of some Asian Pacific Islander games.
There had been an incident two or three
days earlier in which some Sereno
is attached to attack their rivals,
and there are some Asian Pacific Islander
gang members present and they help.
They defended. The train goes rivals.
They fought with strangers and so is
pay back the next Saturday when they
knew staffing is low and there were a
lot of staff on the Hill to respond.
They basically swarmed over kitchen
walls and around kitchen walls
and ran to the other unit.
I think there were somewhere
around 20 residents that attacked
about eight other residents,
and there were so many residents involved
that staff literally had no control.
They were calling for help,
which is a code 1 means
every staff available come.
You shut down the unit 1 staff in the unit,
everybody else responds.
And even with all the staff that were
available to respond on the Hill,
they still couldn't control the situation.
They are in some reports where residents
fought until they were too tired to fight.
There are situations where staff would
grab one resident poem underground.
Two other residents would come over
start trying to kick that resident
in the head so the staff had to let
the president go to defend himself
because we're not gonna stand
there or hold on to a kid.
Well now the kids are solving
it and there's instances where
residents are pushing staff down,
pushing away from them.
Several staff were injured
during that incident and really,
I don't see that much has
been done to address that.
By its nature, it's a dangerous environment,
but how much of this violence is because
of mismanagement by the administration?
I would have to say that.
More than 50% of it is,
and our policies have been.
Slowly going more and more
towards our residents.
Don't fear consequences for
their actions and that is
totally an administration.
We don't make policy at blind level.
These are your sons,
your brothers.
In some cases a few cases,
your husbands that we're dealing
with and we want to not only help
them do better in their lives but
keep society safe. That's our job
and I don't think that message gets
across and also legislature members
because of fact we deal with juveniles
even though we haven't got to be
age of 21 and now 25.
They don't think the situation is
dire is that
in like Western Michigan State Hospital
or in the Department of Corrections
facilities. But they are. They are the
same issues that they have. There is
because we're dealing with children or kids.
They don't see. This has the
same impact on the staff there.