[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 97 (Monday, July 20, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8550-S8551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Finally, Mr. President, seeing no other colleague on 
the floor, I want to talk about this more in detail and in depth when 
we have the Commerce-State-Justice appropriations bill before us, which 
I think will be in the next day or so. I am working on an amendment--I 
hope it can be ready--that actually evolves from a piece of legislation 
I have been working on for some time dealing with mental health in 
children.
  I have been very lucky to have done a lot of the mental health work 
with Senator Domenici from New Mexico, my Republican colleague. He has 
certainly been more of the leader than I have, but I have been honored 
to work with him.
  Mr. President, I went on a visit--I will talk about this in more 
detail, in more depth later--to Lula, LA, about 2 weeks ago as a 
Senator. I think it was some of the best work I have done as a Senator 
outside of Minnesota--the best work is in Minnesota. I wanted to go 
there because I have read some Justice Department reports about the 
need for real dramatic improvement in the conditions affecting these 
children.
  I see pages here. This is a corrections center, and the kids that are 
here in the center range in age from 11 to about 18. A lot of the kids 
I talked to were 14, 15. I did talk to several 11-year-olds as well. I 
went down there determined--I talked to both of my colleagues from 
Louisiana, not to sort of say, well, how terrible, Louisiana; only in 
Louisiana. I do not believe that for a moment. I think we can do a lot 
better.
  My focus had to do with mental health and children. The estimates now 
made by the Justice Department--there was a pretty powerful front-page 
story in the New York Times that was written last week that I will get 
in the Record when I offer this amendment. But the fact of the matter 
is, the estimates are that about 25 percent of the kids here struggle 
with mental problems. Many of them actually never committed a crime. I 
mean, they would be picked up, they would run away from home, be out in 
the street. A very small percentage committed a violent crime; I guess 
probably less than 10 percent, closer to 5 percent. I will talk about 
that in a moment.
  But what happens is that these facilities--and this is certainly what 
happened in Lula--become a dumping ground with kids struggling with 
mental illness. They should not be there in the first place. To 
compound the problem, they are there, but with no treatment. And to 
compound that problem, it becomes pretty brutal with them. They should 
not be there.
  I went to Lula--and, again, I am going to be very careful as not to 
speak with that much emotion because there is plenty to be emotional 
about, but to just give a report on the floor of the Senate. I will 
focus on this again in more detail with the amendment so my colleagues 
know what the amendment is about.
  In the administrative building there were a lot of people from 
Louisiana that were there, a lot of officials, which was fine. I met 
the new warden, whom I believe is trying to make changes. He just got 
there, so it would be unfair to pin any of this on him.
  I wanted to go to the solitary confinement cells because I also heard 
kids were locked up in solitary confinement as many as 23 hours a day 
for as long as 6 or 7 weeks. I wanted to know which kids. I wanted to 
know, What does a kid do to be put in solitary confinement like this? 
What is the criteria you use? I wanted to know more about that.
  Initially, we negotiated, and the idea was I would get there, but 
first I would start off with kids who were eating lunch. I went in, and 
it was interesting. There were kids eating lunch. I also say, since I 
think race is still a reality in America, my guess is over 80 percent 
of the kids of about 500-plus kids were African American. I do not know 
what the population is in Louisiana--certainly nowhere close to 80 
percent.
  Kids were eating, and I went up to some kids who were eating, and I 
just said, ``How are you doing?'' This one young guy said to me, ``Not 
that good.'' I said, ``What do you mean?'' He said, ``Well, you see 
this food?'' By this time lots of officials were with me. He said, 
``See this food?'' I said, ``Yeah.'' He said, ``We never eat this food. 
We never have a meal like this. This is just because you're here.''
  He said, ``The table--smell the paint. This was just painted. These 
tables don't look like this.'' He said, ``These clothes I have on,''--I 
am just reporting what he said to me--he said, ``These clothes I have 
on, they just gave us this stuff last night. These aren't the clothes 
we usually wear. It's hot. There's no air conditioning. You

[[Page S8551]]

know, we smell--the same clothing, same underwear. We never get new 
clothing like this.''
  Then he went on and he said, ``When you go outside and you look at 
the baskets there, when you look at the hoops, the nets were put on the 
hoop. We didn't have any nets on these hoops. This all just happened. 
This is a show.''
  That is the way it started out. I just give that report. Then I 
walked across the yard, heading over to where the solitary confinement 
cells are, and there was a group of kids outside. It was very hot. And 
this one young man just basically broke away from the guards and leaped 
on to a roof of a building and started running toward me. I had a whole 
lot of people that were with me, a lot of media people from Louisiana, 
and again a lot of people from the State.
  I went over to where he was, and I said, ``You're going to get in a 
lot of trouble.'' And I think he said, ``I know.'' I said, ``Why are 
you doing this?'' He said, ``I want to make a statement.'' I said, 
``What is your statement?'' He said, ``I want to tell you this is a 
show. And I want to tell you, when you leave we're going to be beaten 
up; we're going to be retaliated against.''
  Mr. President, I then met with four kids and their lawyer from the 
Southern Poverty Law Center--a great lawyer--for about an hour. They 
talked about some of the retaliation--which, by the way, I have to give 
the warden credit. There has been some reduction in this. But the more 
I was there, the more it became clear to me--and, again, I will, from 
Fox Butterfield's article in the New York Times, I will spend more time 
on this with the amendment.

  But it became clear to me that there was precious little by way of 
vocational ed, hardly any education, not adequate counseling services, 
not an adequate way of assessing kids. Did they come from a home where 
there was violence in the home? Were there substance abuse problems? 
Were they themselves in need of treatment, especially in the mental 
health area, pharmacological treatment, or other treatment? Hardly 
adequate medical facilities.
  I just have to tell you, Mr. President, I am not so angry at 
Louisiana because I know you can find plenty of these conditions around 
the country. But I am wondering how in the world we can let this happen 
in America.
  Some of the kids I met with--one boy had stolen a moped, and thus he 
wound up here. One was there for breaking and entering and had broken 
into somebody's home. Another cut somebody with a knife in a fight, so 
on and so forth.
  But here is my question: I have two questions now. One, which will 
speak to the amendment that I hope to have ready, and the other goes 
beyond that. On mental health and children, I really do believe--and I 
spoke with the warden afterwards and, again, I give him credit for, I 
believe, trying to make changes, and I believe the same with the 
commissioner of corrections. I am always interested in having things 
change.
  Senator Breaux said that there is going to be an all-out effort to do 
a lot more by way of training with the staff there. But my question is 
whether or not--when it comes to Louisiana or any State in the country, 
from Louisiana to California, to New York, to Minnesota; though I think 
there are great differences, great differences right now--the question 
really is this: Whether or not we are going to, within some kind of 
framework of integrated mental health services, provide these States 
with some resources so that, in fact, an assessment can be made, and so 
that we just do not dump kids in these facilities. And if they are in 
these facilities because they really have committed a crime, and they 
need to be in such a facility--although there are many alternatives--
then we ought to make sure they get the treatment.
  The second thing that I want to say, Mr. President, in this 
particular case is this has been all contracted out to--I forget the 
name of the company--and I have to wonder about how we do this. I mean, 
I have to say, I am all for profit. I am all for a strong private 
sector, especially the more small business focused it is, the more I 
like it. But when you are talking about juveniles, they are supposed to 
be receiving additional help.
  They are supposed to get the educational and vocational 
opportunities. And they are supposed to be able to receive the kind of 
support services that will enable them, when they are 15 or 16 and 
after they have been in these facilities, to get out and rebuild their 
lives.
  I have to tell you, America, that I do not think too many of these 
kids are going to be able to do that. And, frankly, if they went in 
mixed up, having made a mistake, having done something they should not 
have done, they are going to come out very different. You might not 
want to meet them at 10 p.m. at night.
  I think what we are doing in some of these facilities is so 
shortsighted, it is so myopic, it is such a big mistake. Yes, hold 
people accountable. And if people commit crimes and should be in a 
corrections center, so be it. But you know what? There are certain 
standards of decency. There are certain standards about how we treat 
young people. Every one of these children is some mother's child, is 
some father's child. I do not care whether they are in Lula, LA, or in 
California, New York, Minnesota, or any other State.
  Now, one of the things in Minnesota that I will brag on a little bit, 
although it is not heaven on Earth, we have tried very hard to do an 
assessment at the front end of the system and look for alternatives to 
incarcerating kids. I just think it is an area that even if we don't 
want to look at--sometimes we don't want to know what we don't want to 
know--we better look at this with our eyes open. These are kids. These 
are kids. A lot of them shouldn't be there. A lot of them are 
struggling with mental problems. A lot of them aren't getting any care 
whatever. We are talking about the criminalization of mental illness.
  Above and beyond that, the other issue I point out is that the 
overall conditions of this facility are unconscionable. I want to make 
it clear again to the warden and to Louisiana, it is not just 
Louisiana. I know that. That just happened to be my first visit. But I 
do have to tell you that after 3 hours--and I don't think I am naive; I 
have done a lot of organizing in a lot of communities with a lot of 
people who have struggled on the bottom--I have to tell you I was 
reeling for 3 hours there. I believe we have to do better. I am looking 
forward to introducing this legislation and maybe it will be an 
amendment on this bill. I hope I will get good support from my 
colleagues.
  I thank both of my colleagues from Louisiana, in particular, for 
being supportive, talking with me about the trip, and their very strong 
interest in working with officials in Louisiana to make things better. 
There are some people in Louisiana State government who are absolutely 
committed to doing that. I know that. I certainly hope, as a Senator 
with an interest in this area, I can help out with their efforts.
  What I can't, however, forget, as I speak on the floor of the Senate, 
is what I saw. I saw conditions that I didn't think existed today in 
America. I saw kids living under conditions that should not be. Kids 
shouldn't be assaulted or beaten up for no good reason. That will take 
us nowhere.
  There are new people who are moving in as security guards. There are 
changes that are being made. But I tell you, the sooner the better; the 
sooner the better. That is one of the reasons I speak on the floor of 
the Senate to try to help make these changes happen.
  I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I yield the floor, and I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, notwithstanding the previous order, I ask 
unanimous consent, detecting no other Senator wishing to speak, I may 
be permitted to continue for 15 minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and 
it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROBERTS. I thank the Chair.




                          ____________________