Gov. Kelly Ayotte says “a lot more work needs to be done” to improve the treatment of minors held at the state’s youth detention center, including more counseling for residents and having staff there wear bodycams repurposed from the state prison system.
“Everybody has to be safe,” Ayotte told reporters Wednesday. “We need to make sure safety and accountability are married with a trauma-informed environment for the youth that are held there.”
Ayotte was speaking after the Executive Council voted unanimously to confirm former Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg to lead the state Office of Child Advocate for 90 days as Ayotte seeks a permanent replacement for Cassandra Sanchez, who Ayotte declined to reappoint.
Sanchez, whose office saw its funding slashed in the current state budget, had detailed incidents of mistreatment and abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center in a March report. That report spurred a legislative investigation that concluded in May that the state’s lack of oversight and poor staff training had failed children and staff at the detention center. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office later found no abuse but recommended that staff receive more training and wear body cameras.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Attorney General John Formella told councilors that ongoing criminal investigations prevented him from speaking in detail about fresh incidents of violence that took place at the facility this month.
“We are really constricted in what we can say,” Formella said.
Ayotte, meanwhile, told reporters she's shooting for “complete transparency as to what is happening there, to protect the safety of the residents, and the staff as well.”
She said the state is developing a new protocol to involve country law enforcement in the handling of criminal incidents at the facility, and will hire temporary workers to improve operations there.
“We are moving as fast as we can with [the Department of] Heath and Human Services to make sure that there are additional trained contracting staff that will go in to support the facility as an interim measure,” Ayotte said.
Ayotte said she expects operational issues at the Sununu Center to be resolved before the state opens its new secure facility for minors on the campus of Hampstead Hospital.
State Health Commissioner Lori Weaver told the council the Hampstead facility is expected to be completed next month, and that she hopes to start moving the roughly one dozen minors now at the Sununu Center to Hampstead early next year.
“A lot of that is contingent on the work we are doing right now,” Weaver said. “We have to make sure that when we move to the new facility we are in a safe position to do so.”
