COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) has five secure facilities housing juveniles across the state, with more than 400 children housed in these secure facilities across the state. As of November 12, there are 66 children housed at the Broad River Road facility. It's that same facility that has been facing serious staffing shortages and security concerns for months.
However changes in leadership brings new hope for the juveniles housed at the facility and the people who work there.
Behind the high razor fences at the South Carolina Department of Juvenile of Justice are children: Children who have been remanded to the custody of the state because they are accused of having committed crimes; some have been convicted.
Any Broughton, Associate Deputy, Office of Institutional Programming at DJJ, says the juveniles are locked up for various reasons. "They can be here for murder and on down," Broughton said.
Earlier this year, News 19 walked down those very halls of the Broad River Road facility, visiting a class of GED students. The classroom rules hanging on the wall. According to the agency, 95 students statewide last school year received their GED this year.
For some juveniles behind those walls, there have long been concerns. Some of those concerns came to light in a 200-page Legislative Audit Council report in 2017, which resulted in 101 recommendations for improvement, most centered around safety.
In May of this year, News 19 spoke to Marcia Lindsay, the Deputy Director of the Legislative Audit Council, which conducted the audit and reported the findings.
"The main finding of this report is that DJJ does not maintain sufficient security staff to ensure the safety of the youth in its custody -- or its own staff -- at the secure facility,” Lindsay said.
RELATED: 'The children are in charge': Follow-up audit of Dept. of Juvenile Justice has lawmakers concerned
As part of the audit process, auditors visited the facility, conducted surveys and interviewed staff regarding job satisfaction, security and safety concerns.
“We found people were scared to go to work -- people who worked there for years. And people also told us they were just really scared that somebody was going to end up dying because of the security, or the lack thereof," Lindsay said.
Staff concerns came to a head on June 4. That's when dozens of DJJ employees left their post in protest of working conditions.
"It's getting hard, you know? As a parent, as a staff member, you don't know if you're gonna come in here and leave out the same way you came,” Juvenile Correctional Officer Brittany Larkin said.
Security concerns, long hours and staff shortages triggered the walkout, with protestors at the time alleging they’re working 24-hour shifts, with little to no breaks.
On the day of the walkout, then Director Freddie Pough said he would address the staffing shortage, saying, "We want to try to do all that we can to get some more folks in here, to give them the support they need, the relief they need. We hope we're going to get the support from the General Assembly to raise their salaries.”
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, WLTX requested six months’ worth of incident reports at DJJ. This is what some of those reports showed.
On January 9 of this year, a juvenile reportedly spat at staff. The staff member wrote that the student “was out of control.” On the same day, another employee reported he was “bombarded to get out of the pod by juveniles,” going on to say he feared for his well being and other juveniles.
On March 22, a student allegedly grabbed and lifted a staff member into the air, slamming them onto a table, then stole the staff member's keys, threatening to hurt him.
On April 12, a report alleges a student threw a desk at a staff member. That staff member said they planned to press charges.
Shortly after the walkout, News19 spoke to then Director Pough. At the time we asked him what kept him up at night. “What keeps me up at night, all the variables of this agency,” he said.
Those variables landed him a vote of no confidence by members of the State Senate Corrections and Penology Subcommittee. By mid-September, Pough resigned.
Fast forward to today. The Department of Juvenile Justice has a new, acting director, Eden Hendrick. Hendrick is a South Carolina attorney, who started her career in family law. Now in the director's seat, she acknowledges the department is looking at an uphill battle.
“Its been hard to walk in and deal with a lot of the issues that are going on,” Hendrick said.
Hendrick says her greatest concern is staffing shortages. The department is revamping recruitment and trying to make positions more attractive by increasing pay.
“We have referral bonuses for our employees, sign on bonuses," said Hendrick.
Hendrick also says staff will also receive training on verbal de escalation skills. “One of the first things I wanted to address was moving behind the fence. I think that’s very, very important, to reconnect everyone in this agency together.”
Currently, the director's office isn’t located on campus. It's actually four miles away on Executive Center Drive.
Wes Laws is the woodworking teacher at DJJ. Now that Hendrick has taken the position, his views on the department have completely changed.
“To be honest with you, she is a breath of fresh air," said Laws. “I can actually sleep much better at night.”
Laws says he understands change will not happen overnight, but believes with Hendrick at the helm, all change will be for the better.
“Eleanor, I think that she has the best interest of the young people that have been entrusted in our care at heart and she has the best interest of the staff that‘s there at heart as well," Laws said.
Senator Katrina Shealy is on the Senate Corrections Subcommittee and has been pushing for change at DJJ since that legislative audit report.
“It's not like she can just walk in and change things because we’ve got at least four or five years of DJJ just falling off the train tracks,” Shealy said. “I am excited she is there, and I hope she has the patience and willpower to stay there and work through this," said Shealy.
Senator Dick Harpootlian, who’s also on the Senate subcommittee, believes addressing the staffing shortage is key. “Nobody wants to work in that dangerous situation for the money we’re paying them. We need to get the money up," Harpootlian said.
Harpootlian added, “You’re not going to get safety until you get adequate number of guards, and you’re not going to get an adequate number of guards till they feel it safe to work there. So, it's chicken or egg. In the interim, maybe the National Guard should come in.”
Harpootlian, like Shealy, is hopeful Hendrick has the skills to right the wrongs at the Department of Juvenile Justice.
“I’m hopeful, because she has inherited a mess, it's going to be an immense task to get it back on an even keel, and it's not going to happen overnight," Harpootlian said.
News19 asked both senators what they want to see happen in the next year and then in the next five years.
“In the next year, I hope we have re-staffed,” Shealy said. “In five years, I hope we are back to where we were 10 years ago. I hope we are back to where children are making a difference when they leave.”
“I want to see them get back to where they were, where kids were actually being educated and were safe and staff were safe," Harpootlian said.