DETROIT — Sexual assaults, fights and poor supervision are rampant at Wayne County's troubled Juvenile Detention Facility, according to multiple former employees who paint a portrait of a facility in chaos.

In interviews with nearly half a dozen former employees, many of whom asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, they described a facility where kids are assaulted by staff and other children, and staff are assaulted themselves by the kids with no consequences. The Hamtramck facility houses both juvenile offenders and at-risk youth who've been placed there for various reasons.

Former workers said the continued problems at the Juvenile Detention Facility stem from multiple issues: understaffing, overcrowding, a lack of training for employees, limited support from higher administrators and an inability, or unwillingness, to discipline kids at the facility for bad behavior.

There have been at least four public incidents of sexual assault at the facility in just over a year: one by a group of boys against a 12-year-old in March 2023 that officials blamed on poor supervision by staff; one allegation of sexual assault by a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services employee that prosecutors found not to have sufficient evidence; and two allegedly by a JDF employee — a 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy in custody.

The March 2023 sexual assault resulted in the state intervening at the facility and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans declaring a public health emergency amid what he called "untenable" conditions.

Though the county and state have since said conditions at the Juvenile Detention Facility have improved — enough that they temporarily removed around-the-clock staff in June 2023 and the county lifted its public health emergency — three employees who worked at the facility within the past year said the conditions are dire. Two of those employees quit their jobs within six months because they said the environment was hostile and the job was traumatizing. They said they did not feel safe working at the facility and felt like their supervisors were not backing them up.

Those three employees, as well as one who worked there more than a year ago, said staff regularly get hit and have spoiled milk or bodily fluids thrown at them. They also get rushed by the kids, sprayed with fire extinguishers and are injured while trying to break up fights.

The facility is licensed for 80 kids but has had as many as 140 at times.

Megan Kirk, a spokeswoman for Wayne County, declined to make Juvenile Detention Facility Director Mack McGhee available for an interview about the facility's conditions. But Kimberly Harry, another county spokeswoman, said in a statement that the county will continue to evaluate policies, procedures and security measures to ensure kids in their care are safe, and will make it clear to staff that they will fire and prosecute bad actors.

The county added a live, constant monitoring system of the housing units in the JDF in August, which is how one staffer's alleged abuse of the two boys was discovered, Harry said.

"Wayne County will not tolerate any staff who compromises the safety and preys on the vulnerability of our young people," Harry said in a statement. "We have implemented numerous policies, procedures and training, which are mandatory for every employee at the Juvenile Detention Facility. Unfortunately, nothing is foolproof in preventing a bad actor that is intent on circumventing the very policies and procedures that are put in place to safeguard the youth in our facility, especially when there is nothing in the individual’s background that questions her character."

The county did not respond Thursday afternoon to follow-up questions asked about the treatment of staff.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also declined to speak in depth about the JDF, but spokesperson Lynn Sutfin provided a statement. The department is aware of charges against one Wayne County Juvenile Detention Center staffer, she said.

"We are committed to protecting the safety and well-being of children," Sutfin said. "We are working with law enforcement and Wayne County while we investigate these allegations."

The Juvenile Detention Facility began operating under a six-month provisional license in November due to repeated violations of licensing regulations, including a lack of staff supervision, poor living conditions and children not receiving hygiene products or recreation time.

The Detroit News interviewed five former employees by phone over one month. Several corroborated one another's experiences.

An employee who worked at the facility for three months at the beginning of 2024 said sexual activity was rampant: between kids, between staff, and between kids and staff.

She said she knew of three coworkers who had sexual relationships with residents. Though some, including Svetlana Kuryanova, who was fired and charged with sexually assaulting two children, were disciplined, the flippant attitude by administrators toward the sexual activity in the facility disgusted her, she said.

She said she could tolerate the kids if it was just their bad behavior. But the adults in charge condoning it are just as bad, she said. The kids might not know any better, she said, but the adults should. Other former employees did not describe sexual assaults.

Three former JDF employees said the managers exploit women who work there. The boys will request that managers send female staff whom they find attractive to work on their pod, they said.

If managers did not comply with their request, kids would hit the staff with wet shirts and towels until they did what they wanted, one of the former employees said. They would also "milk" the staffers, where they would let milk spoil, mix it with bodily fluids and throw it at them, multiple former employees said.

A woman who was a supervisor at the JDF from January through early April alleged there was no discipline of the kids, which led to some violent behavior toward each other and staff.

Many of the staffers are unprofessional in how they interact with kids, she and two other former employees said. She said it is an "accident waiting to happen." She didn't want something to happen on her watch and end up being on the news, she said. So she quit.

Another employee, who worked at the JDF for five months, said management treated some employees terribly.

Even when the kids assault them, she said, staff cannot fight back because the staffers could go to jail or have Children's Protective Services get involved. The staffers are taught physical restraint techniques, but those aren't overly helpful with adult-sized children, she said.

There's not enough staff to control the kids who are there, four former employees said. One former employee, who worked there more than a year ago, said the kids were breaking windows and TVs and breaking out of their rooms, so some staff allowed the kids to run freely all day as long as they weren't assaulting anyone.

More than 80% of the issues cited in state reports since March 2023 were staffing-related, from not intervening in fights to hitting back at a child after a child struck a staff member, according to a review of the reports.

The citations included improperly restraining a child, staff sitting with their backs to children and not taking a child to get stitches for four hours after he was cut by a metal piece from a face mask. In one case, a staff member allegedly slammed a child's head onto a table.

One employee said he constantly worried about the safety of the female staff.

Several former employees at the JDF have filed lawsuits alleging a hostile work environment. Two nurses alleged in a lawsuit they were fired for raising concerns about how medical issues were handled.

And a former staffer said the county treated male employees at the JDF worse than female employees, according to a lawsuit he filed against the facility.

Harry Murphy said in the lawsuit when he expressed fear of an aggressive child who threatened to kill him, his female facility manager mocked him and said, "You men can't be scared of these kids."

This hostile environment, especially concerning sexual behavior, is not new, said Shanell Farris, a longtime former employee who sued the county because of purported sexual harassment and a hostile work environment in 2000.

Farris alleged that supervisors did not care when she made multiple reports that she was sexually assaulted by the residents. She worked there for 15 years before she was fired in 2003 for complaining about the county's treatment of her, according to the lawsuit.

In 2000, a short time before Farris' lawsuit, federal authorities were investigating the facility after at least 20 teens reported that staff members sexually assaulted them, according to Detroit News archives. Nearly a dozen employees sued the county for wrongful firing and for violating whistleblower laws after they complained about the possible sexual abuse of residents.

Speaking to The News in May, Farris said she still knows people who work there. She was alarmed when she heard a child had been assaulted in March 2023.

“I see everything. Nothing has changed,” Farris said. “They really took me through hell.”

In her lawsuit, she said the boys constantly made sexual comments toward her, and her supervisors refused to do anything.

Farris said she was sexually assaulted by a boy in December 1995, and her supervisors made her transport the boy to another location shortly after. When she said this was inappropriate, she was told to be mature about the assignment and expect to be the subject of sexual comments from the kids, according to the lawsuit.

She said she was again sexually assaulted by two inmates in June 1997, and her supervisor allegedly told her: “Look at it this way, Shanell, at least you’re getting paid for it,” according to the lawsuit. She settled with the county for an undisclosed amount.

The environment in the facility was terrible for workers and the residents, Farris said, but she cared for the kids too much to leave; she toughed it out for them. A coworker was raped at work, she said, and relationships between staff and residents were not uncommon.

“It wasn’t just men,” Farris said. “Women were dealing with them little boys, too. Some of those little boys are 15 and 6-(foot)-5. They’re little boys in age but in men’s bodies.”

Rep. Jamie Thompson, R-Brownstown Township, said she is frustrated with how little people seem to care about the treatment of kids at detention facilities and psychiatric hospitals, such as the Hawthorn Center, a children's psychiatric hospital temporarily located at the Walter P. Reuther Psychiatric Hospital in Westland.

Thompson said she's spoken to the chief of staff at the Juvenile Detention Facility, who said the issues there stem from being understaffed and underfunded.

Thompson said kids at JDF are "restless and anxious, sitting there buying time." Their time served doesn't start until they are placed in a treatment facility, but there are a shortage of beds, so many of the kids are stuck at the JDF waiting, she said.

“I feel like there needs to be a serious conversations about the way programs are running and how facilities are staffed,” Thompson said. “We need to make sure that these facilities have a proper amount of funding to make sure kids are not only safe …, but that we’re not tying the hands of the guards working at them."

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