A Maine man says he skilled extreme isolation, pointless use of drive and restraint and was sexually abused throughout a four-year interval in two youth prisons, in keeping with a lately filed lawsuit.
Alexander Mascal, of Litchfield, was confined to Mountain View Youth Growth Heart from Could 2012 to March 2014, in keeping with the go well with filed this week in U.S. District Courtroom. He was then transferred to Lengthy Creek Youth Growth Heart, the place he remained till April 2016.
Lengthy Creek, situated in South Portland, turned Maine’s solely middle for the incarceration of juveniles after the Division of Corrections turned Mountain View in Charleston into an grownup jail in 2015.
The lawsuit names Lengthy Creek, the Division of Corrections, two former commissioners of the division and several other juvenile program staff as defendants. It says that Mascal struggled to regulate to the youth jail when he entered at age 14 and that he obtained into bother for being disruptive, stepping into altercations with employees and different youngsters, and engaged in self-harming conduct.
“Alexander was a baby in acute disaster,” the go well with says. “He was in determined want of therapeutic helps. As a substitute, facility employees … responded by putting Alexander in isolation.”
It says Mascal was positioned in isolation for intervals “far past these essential to alleviate conduct” and at one level spent three months in isolation at Mountain View.
At each youth prisons, the lawsuit says Mascal was topic to bodily assaults from employees, typically in response to minor infractions or psychological well being signs. In a single occasion in the summertime of 2013, the go well with says Mascal positioned a bit of paper over the window of his cell door. In response, a juvenile program specialist opened the cell door, tackled Mascal and pinned him face down on his mattress.
This system specialist then obtained on prime of Mascal and wrenched his legs up behind him, along with his full physique weight on Mascal’s again. Mascal cried out in ache and gasped that he was having problem respiratory, the go well with says, to which this system specialist started hitting him within the ribs.
Whereas at Lengthy Creek, the lawsuit says Mascal was subjected to sexual abuse by a feminine juvenile program employee with whom he had sexual encounters greater than 10 instances. Mascal was transferred to the Cumberland County Jail in April 2016 and launched in February 2017. Mascal had simply turned 19 at the moment, and the 2 started overtly relationship.
This system employee was 37 years outdated on the time, and she or he offered Mascal with alcohol and Suboxone as a method of manipulating him, the lawsuit mentioned. Mascal finally reached out to his former caseworker to report the connection and informed a Division of Corrections investigator in regards to the sexual encounters he had with this system employee whereas he was a minor incarcerated at Lengthy Creek.
After an preliminary name with the investigator, Mascal by no means heard from him once more, the lawsuit mentioned.
Critics of Maine’s juvenile justice system have been calling for Lengthy Creek’s closure, and a research launched in December 2021 cited persistent employees shortages, crushing boredom for imprisoned youths, and a scarcity of structured and constant programming to have interaction them as contributing elements in seven violent episodes on the facility throughout the summer time of 2021.
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