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CYFD defends staff after alleged rape
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The Children, Youth and Families Department secretary today defended staff and practices at the Albuquerque center where a 15-year-old boy claims he was raped.
"There was due diligence. I am convinced," Secretary Dorian Dodson said of the supervision of the three youths involved in the incident at the Youth Diagnostic and Development Center.
Two teens have been charged in Children's Court with rape and kidnapping. The victim reported the Sep. 21 attack on Sunday.
Dodson said the center was staffed Sunday for 158 teens. On Thursday, it housed 152 teens. "We had a lot of kids, but we were staffed," she said. The staffing ratios met national standards, she said.
The staff also completed, every 10 minutes, its rounds of the cottages where juveniles are housed, she said. The rounds were confirmed by the center's Superintendent Bruce Langston, Dodson said.
Dodson acknowledged an internal memo written by Langston in August in which he expressed concerns about crowding and placement of youth received from the Boys School in Springer, which is being closed.
Langston has written internal memos about his concerns with the crowding and placement of youth since June.
His latest memo, which CYFD would not release, was issued in August. Langston was not available for an interview today.
"Everyone agrees this is a challenging time," Dodson said. "We are looking at every placement possibility, beefing up our own system and contracting for others. Our challenge, of course, is finding good placements" for teens.
She said the Boys School will close after 12 teens are placed.
YDDC's capacity will not grow by much because the goal is to reduce the numbers within months, Dodson said. The ideal capacity is 120 to 130.
As far as placement of the teens involved in last week's incident, Dodson said they had been screened and were not grouped together without consideration of their previous offenses and other factors. "The alleged perpetrators had no history of sexual offenses," she said.
The YDDC is the CYFD's facility for the most violent offenders. But all convicted juveniles are sent to the center for screening to determine their placement in the juvenile system.
The alleged rape victim's mother, a former nurse at the center, said crowding is a problem.
She said this was the case in the intake unit where her son was awaiting evaluation and was attacked by two roommates.
Darnyle Pioche, 15, and Adam Landon, 14, pleaded innocent in Children's Court on Wednesday to seven charges, including kidnapping and criminal sexual penetration. If convicted, they face adult prison time of up to 82 years on all counts.
