A leading advocate for youth detained in the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice say state law makes it easy for officials with ties to the center to pass blame.
The juvenile justice center has come under intense scrutiny in recent months as allegations of officers sexually abusing detained youth have surfaced.
Since April, two officers have been charged with sex crimes, a civil rights lawsuit accusing more than 20 center employees of abuse or harassment has been filed, and the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs has investigated the center.
Tulsa County commissioners have pointed to state statute that says the county’s juvenile bureau has authority over the center. An organizational chart from Tulsa County shows the district juvenile judge oversees the entire juvenile bureau.
But on Thursday, county commissioners announced they would try hold a special meeting to replace Juvenile Judge Kevin Gray following the state probe. The investigation beginning in May included interviews with Gray and multiple visits to the center.
“The Board of County Commissioners intends to schedule a Special Meeting to request the Presiding Judge of the Judicial Administrative District replace Judge Gray as Judge of the Juvenile Division,” a statement from the commissioners reads.
In a statement Friday, county commissioners spokeswoman Laurie Lee said the commissioners can only "request" a judge be removed from office. Lee said it's ultimately up to the presiding judge who oversees Gray.
That evening, Gray issued his own statement pointing out that state law requires the commissioners to either operate the juvenile justice center through the courts, an appointed manager or through contract with a public agency. He suggested the county commissioners “alter the operational structure” either through contract with Juvenile Affairs or by appointing a manager.
At a town hall Thursday evening, Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice Director Colleen McCarty said officials were playing “one giant game of chicken” by passing the blame like a "hot potato."
“Nobody wants to hold it for too long, because it’s not their responsibility, but it’s kind of like, everyone’s responsible. But it makes it difficult to make any changes or to cause any kind of reforms because there’s so many people that are implicated,” McCarty said.
McCarty wants the county commissioners to have more direct oversight of the facility.
“It only makes sense that the people who are responsible financially are also responsible for how the situation is run, and they really don’t have the power to do that right now,” she said.
‘Extreme harm’
According to the lawsuit filed by Smolen Law, Juvenile Affairs placed the center on probation in 2023. Concerns cited included “youth being kept in their rooms/isolated, education concerns, and problems handling grievances and their resolutions."
While the center came off probation in 2024, detention officers Jonathan Hines and Dquan Doyle were charged in April and May for alleged sexual acts with detained youth. Both are defendants in the lawsuit.
Attorneys have since added nine additional defendants to the lawsuit. They’ve also requested they all be moved from the center after a detention officer allegedly threatened a public defender representing one of the youth, and called the youth Hines allegedly raped a “whore.”
McCarty said the commissioners should have more proactively responded to three emails sent to them from Juvenile Affairs in May 2022. Copies of the emails show Juvenile Affairs outlined the concerns eventually cited in the center’s 2023 probation.
McCarty said a more proactive response could have gotten the county ahead of the alleged sex crimes.
“That may not be true in a couple weeks, but today, if they had acted on the third email, it would have saved them from extreme, extreme harm,” she said.
Attorney Christopher Brecht, who is litigating the case, said he believes every youth in the center has been abused at this point.
“It is the worst of the worst places to be if you are a young person in Tulsa County,” Brecht said.
The county says it's working on a statement in response to McCarty's remarks.
