Ex-chief says bad kids made YDDC unsafe

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Bruce Langston, shuffled aside after a near-riot at the juvenile lockup he ran, still defends his plan to crack down on violent inmates, a plan overrule by superiors and panned by critics as belonging in an adult prison.

Under Langston's watch as superintendent of the state Youth Diagnostic and Development Center in Albuquerque, four inmates escaped in March. Three weeks later a bench-clearing brawl erupted at what was supposed to be a party rewarding good classroom behavior by inmates.

KRQE News 13 obtained internal security video of kids going at it, on and off, for 15 minutes as staff struggled to regain control. Twenty five kids and several adults were injured.

Last week the Children, Youth and Families Department removed Langston as superintendent and transferred him to another position outside YDDC.

All this happened after Langston proposed a crackdown in February that his bosses rejected.

"With a philosophy that I think is dangerous to themselves and to the young people that they're supposed to serve" Langston told News 13. The tension leading to the brawl can be blamed on older, violent inmates who repeatedly victimize the weaker kids, he said.

Documents obtained by News 13 revealed a group of six inmates were responsible for a total of 51 assaults on other inmates and staffers.

"I think stricter controls sometimes are needed to make things safer," Langston said.

However David Schmidt, chairman of the New Mexico Coalition for Juvenile Justice, said the responsibility for the situation falls squarely on Langston.

"Langston was the superintendent," Schmidt said. "The buck stops somewhere."

Schmidt also described Langston as a bad fit for YDDC given the 15 years he worked in adult corrections.

"Langston did not make a good transition from the adult system to the juvenile system," Schmidt said. "His thinking is still in the adult system."

As part of his proposed crackdown, Langston wanted to make sure no more than one of the most violent offenders could get out into the yard at any one time.

"To develop a policy where you would take one child at a time out into the yard, this is how supermaxes are operated," Schmidt said referring to a new class of maximum-security prisons. "This is how we treat our most dangerous offenders in a prison."

Langston also wanted to remove TV privileges from repeat offenders. Schmidt questioned what good that would have done.

But Schmidt bristled at how Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White labeled the state's kinder, gentler approach to Juvenile Justice.

"It sickens me to hear a responsible adult like Darren White make a statement like, 'It's a hug-a-thug program.'" says Schmidt. "To me that's irresponsible."

Schmidt said Langston did have options, among them hauling the worst offenders before a judge to ask for tougher treatment or even a transfer to adult jail.

"If you have a kid with a growing rap sheet within the institution, you may want to consider that same thing," Schmidt advised. "The kid is beyond our ability to control and treat."

Langston feels it's impossible to rehabilitate kids whose main concern is simple survival.

"I think we have a different ideal about how you proceed in operating these places so that not only can you be rehabilitative, but you can also be safe," Langston continued. "We need a violent-offenders unit to deal specifically with some of these young people that are perpetrating crimes on other young people."

After the brawl Dorian Dodson, the governor's CYFD cabinet secretary, relieved Langston of command.

Asked if he was "thrown under the bus," Langston responded, "Absolutely, absolutely. No doubt in my mind."

Langston's new job is writing policy manuals for a state agency that rejected his way of doing business.

News 13 has been attempting for several without success to interview Dodson.