Sheriff decries YDDC 'hug-a-thug'

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The state's juvenile lockup is coddling it toughest young felons, according to Bernalillo County's sheriff who refers to the rehabilitation effort as 'hug-a-thug.'

For its part the state is, in essence, telling Sheriff Darren White to butt out of the juvenile-justice system.

White was responding to recent reporting by KRQE News 13 on trouble within the Youth Diagnostic and Development Center in Albuquerque and the reassignment of the superintendent who wanted to crack down on the most violent and unruly inmates.

Four inmates broke out of the facility in March, and a 30-inmate free-for-all in April injured kids and staff.

Weeks before the brawl YDDC Superintendent Bruce Langston warned trouble was brewing.

But his warning and plans to get tougher with some of the inmates were ignored. And documents obtained by News 13 show how the state’s juvenile justice director labeled plans to take TVs out of the quarters of those inmates “extremely punitive.”

She also called those inmates “clients,” a term that didn't sit well with White.

“They're not ‘clients;’ they're felons,” White after viewing News 13's Thursday report on Langston's reassignment.

White also looked at records obtained by News 13 showing six inmates placed in a special unit but allowed to socialize with other kids were cited 51 times for assault within YDDC.

“They can't understand that with some of these inmates, no matter what you do with them, they are going to behave in the same fashion,” White said. “They're little predators.”

However a spokesperson for the Children, Youth and Families Department, which operates the state's juvenile lockups, said in Thursday's report that YDDC is doing what it was designed to do for young offenders.

“They're sent to our facility for the care and rehabilitation that the agency has to offer,” Romaine Serna said. “And that is in the state statute in the delinquency code."

Serna said that for even the most troubled inmates to succeed later in life, what they need now is rehabilitation, not punishment.

“It (punishment) is just going to convince them what they think about the world already is true, that it’s not a safe place, that it’s not a fair place,” Serna told News 13.

White called Serna's statement outrageous.

“The world is not safe because of these inmates, the ones who are at their facility," he said. "That's crazy. I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it.”

White said he has spoken out about what he calls the lax discipline at YDDC for years, and plans to contact the Richardson administration to reinstate Langston, "a corrections professional," as YDDC superintendent. Langdon was transferred to another job Monday.

But White, a Republican, is unlikely to get a welcome reception from the Democratic governor based on a statement e-mailed to News 13 by Deputy Chief of Staff Gilbert Gallegos:

“Darren White should worry about the thugs he’s responsible for, rather than offering advice to juvenile justice professionals.”