Agency Responses to AZ Dept of Juvenile Corrections - Rehabilitation and Community Re-entry Programs

Janice K. Brewer Michael Branham Governor Director February 25, 2009 Debra K. Davenport, Auditor General Office of the Auditor General th2910 North 44 Street, Suite 410 Phoenix, Arizona 85018 Dear Ms. Davenport: This is the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections’ (ADJC or “the Department”) response to your preliminary draft performance audit of ADJC programs. The Department will respond specifically to each of the recommendations you have made, but first offers background information that places both your report and this response in broader context. The Department believes that an understanding of its transformation since 2003 will benefit those who read your report. As you note, the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) issued a report in 2004 detailing numerous serious deficiencies at ADJC in broad-ranging areas including the physical conditions of its secure care facilities, suicide prevention, protection of juveniles from harm, special education programming, treatment programming and medical and mental health services. The USDOJ pointed to three juvenile suicides in the Department’s Adobe Mountain School in 2002 and 2003. Those dire findings lead to the filing of United States of America v. the State of Arizona in federal district court on September 15, 2004. That lawsuit alleged unconstitutional conditions of confinement in three ADJC secure care facilities (Adobe Mountain School, Black ...