NAACP claims children in adult jails treated harshly

Several civil rights groups are raising concerns about housing children in adult jails.

Both Marion and Polk counties recently started putting child inmates in adult jails to save money.  Now, Seminole County is about to do the same.

Eyewitness News learned that some people believe those jailed children are being treated too harshly.

Nobody promised a picnic behind the razor wire of a county jail, but civil rights activists say the treatment of younger inmates in Central Florida has gotten heavy-handed.

“It's outright child abuse," said David Utter of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Utter singled out Polk County during a meeting of the Florida Jail Standards Committee.  Polk is one of two Central Florida counties where the Sheriff’s Office houses children in the adult jail.

Utter says there have been lots of complaints, and he cited letters written by the mothers and grandmothers of some of the young inmates. Those letters included details of an officer's use of pepper spray after a fist fight between some of the teens.

"The officer then proceeded to pull his hair back and spray the child directly in the face,” said Utter.  “The other young man was vomiting."

"I can assure you all of us are sensitive to the needs of children,” said Marion County Sheriff Ed Dean.

Dean chairs the committee, and his jail houses juveniles.  More counties are considering it because it is cheaper than paying the state to hold them.  However, state rules are stricter than guidelines set by the committee, which is what Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd follows.

Groups like the NAACP say underage inmates should not be treated like adults, and should not be held in the adult jail.  

"Youths are youths, adults are adults, said the NAACP’s Loretta Jenkins. “Those two should not cross paths."

A spokesperson for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office told Eyewitness News the charge that juvenile inmates are treated like adults is “absolutely false.”

He said there is no interaction, either by sight or sound, between younger inmates and adult prisoners.  The sheriff's office also said jail standards for juveniles were developed specifically for children.

As for the pepper spray, the sheriff's office says it is used, but only when people are in danger of getting hurt.