Lancaster County Commissioner calls for review of policies at Youth Intervention Center (2024)

Lancaster County Commissioner Alice Yoder on Tuesday called for a comprehensive review of policies and procedures at the Lancaster County Youth Intervention Center after officials recently ended a policy to routinely strip-search resident children who are allowed to come and go from the center.

Yoder is seeking a review that would compare the center’s oversight procedures to those of other youth centers and weigh any evidence that exists to support current practices at the center, which houses about three dozen boys and girls.

The other two county commissioners, Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino, did not respond to her proposal at a commissioners work session Tuesday.

Yoder said in a statement that the issue of strip searches arose at a May meeting of the youth center’s board of managers, which meets quarterly. The commissioner asked youth center officials how their procedures compare to those of other youth facilities.

Staff at the center agreed to look into the matter and see whether they could make any updates, Yoder said.

Strip searches also came to the attention of Lancaster County Court President Judge David Ashworth around the same time, though the judge said Tuesday he couldn’t recall how he first learned of the issue.

Ashworth worked with county Solicitor Jackie Pfursich and her office to revise the youth center policy on strip searches, he said.

“There was not a need to get into any intensive or in-depth investigation,” Ashworth said. “It was, ‘We believe this policy should be changed, and they changed it.’ ”

A new policy that eliminated routine searches of kids who are allowed to leave the center took effect June 24, according to youth center Director Drew Fredericks. Now, those children no longer have to undergo a full-body search each time they return.

“For shelter individuals, they are needing the county’s protection and the court’s protection, and I just felt that [the previous practice] was inappropriate,” Ashworth said.

Detecting contraband

Parsons, who chairs the county board that oversees the youth center, said county officials would not discuss details about the facility’s previous strip-search procedures, but said, “The security procedures at the YIC have been in place, as long as I’m aware, since the beginning of YIC.”

The youth center opened in 2002, replacing a circa-1960s juvenile facility called Barnes Hall. It includes both a detention side to house juveniles accused of breaking the law, and a shelter side, which houses unplaced foster children and other minors without reliable parental care.

The shelter also serves some kids involved in the juvenile court process, according to the youth center. Delinquency of a minor is the analog to a criminal conviction in the adult justice system.

Juveniles in detention are not allowed to leave the facility, according to the youth center, and receive schooling inside the facility.

The youth center’s new policy, according to Fredericks, directs staff to screen returning resident children with a series of questions and do a full-body search only if they suspect the child is hiding some kind of contraband.

“It’s been – knock on wood – no major issues” with contraband since the policy took effect, Fredericks said, and no searches have been needed.

State Sen. Scott Martin of Martic Township, who formerly worked in juvenile detention for 13 years, served as the youth center’s director before winning election to the county board of commissioners in 2007.

In his time working in juvenile detention, Martin said he saw children hide a variety of security threats on their bodies – from a razor blade tucked in someone’s cheek to a “balloon of heroin” hidden down an individual’s throat.

“In those types of environments, you’ve got to make sure the safety of kids and the safety of all the staff members always has to be maintained,” Martin said.

Perception of terms

At the Tuesday work session, Parsons said the term “body cavity search” was a misleading term to use in describing the youth center’s practices, though a publicly available 2014 youth center policy statement refers to its use of “body cavity searches.”

The term simply means looking inside a kid’s mouth, Parsons said. Martin said the term could include searches of ears and noses as well.

Martin said strip searches at the center did not include any probing or close visual inspection of the anus, though they may have included a “squat-and-cough” procedure to check for any signs of contraband in an individual’s body cavity.

Parsons declined Tuesday to say whether the youth center still uses a “squat-and-cough” procedure.

Ashworth said he was only aware that youth center staff shine lights in the kids’ mouths.

The 2014 search policy states that searches can be conducted only by a staff member of the same gender as the youth resident, and the searches include “unclothed, partially clothed and body cavity searches.”

Editor's note: This story was updated at 9:31 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2024 to clarify individuals eligible to stay in the YIC shelter.