Full opinion text
FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND ORDER JOSEPH F. ANDERSON, Jr., District Judge. This is an action initiated by juveniles incarcerated at the four correctional institutions maintained and operated by the South Carolina' Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The Plaintiffs initiated this action on December 28, 1990 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as damages, from the Defendants, the DJJ commissioner and board members. The Plaintiffs challenge numerous conditions of confinement of juveniles housed in the facilities operated by DJJ. They allege that the Defendants, all acting under color of state law, have deprived them of rights secured by the United States Constitution and various federal statutes. In their answer, the Defendants admit that DJJ is forced to house more juveniles than the facilities were designed to hold, but deny that the overcrowding rises to the level of a constitutional violation. During the trial of this ease, however, counsel, for the Defendants admitted that current levels of population exceed minimum constitutional standards and consented to an order requiring a release of juveniles to alleviate overcrowding. In regard to the other allegations of the complaint, the Defendants either deny them or admit them with the qualification that good-faith efforts have been made to secure the necessary funding to improve these conditions. The Defendants further deny that any of the additional violations constitute deprivations of rights secured by the Constitution or various statutory provisions. Procedural History of the Case On January 16,1991, the court appointed a guardian ad litem to represent the purported class. On March 7, 1991, the court certified the class as consisting of -all persons presently and in the future housed within the DJJ correctional facilities. On that same date, the court approved the litigation team assembled to represent the Plaintiffs in this action. The court also allowed Richard A. Harpootlian, Solicitor for the Fifth Judicial Circuit of South Carolina, to participate in this action as amicus curiae. Acting upon the request of both parties, the court entered an order on September 23, 1991 severing the question of overcrowding for a separate trial and indicating that the court would make a “preliminary determination” as to a suitable population ceiling for all DJJ facilities in dispute. That order provided that the parties would thereafter be directed to negotiate the remaining issues in the case “in light of the court's opinion [on population] which, if unchanged, would likely be embodied in any final relief this court might fashion in this case.” The court heard testimony on the population question on December 4 and 6,1991. The court then determined, in an order dated March 31, 1992, that its decision to sever and try separately the population question was in error. The court reached this conclusion for two reasons: (1) the court decided that the question of overcrowding could not be considered independently of the other issues relating to conditions of confinement that are presented in this case; and (2) both parties and their expert witnesses based their population ceiling analysis on standards promulgated by ihe American Correctional Association (ACA). The ACA standards have been rejected as inappropriate models upon which to make constitutional population determinations. For those two reasons, the court declined to establish firm, or even tentative, population ceilings. After the March 31,' 1992 order was entered, the parties requested that the court stay its scheduling order to allow the parties an opportunity to discuss an amicable settlement of the case. These efforts proved to be unsuccessful, and the ease was therefore restored to the active docket and scheduled for trial in June 1994. In the course of preparing for the trial of this case, the court has conducted twenty-two hearings and status conferences and issued fifty-four pretrial orders. In addition, the court has visited all of the DJJ facilities on three separate occasions, totaling more than twenty hours of visits. On two of the visits, the court partook of a meal in the DJJ dining facilities. In an effort to acquaint itself with comparable facilities in other jurisdictions, the court visited the Lorenzo Bean Youth Correctional Center near Atlanta, Georgia operated by the Georgia Department of Children and Youth Services. Also, the court visited the Columbia, South Carolina facility of the Alston Wilkes Society. In 1992, the court appointed five expert witnesses pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 706: a juvenile correctional expert, an educator, a medical doctor, a clinical psychologist, and an architect. In addition, the court received a copy of the final report of the South Carolina Juvenile Justice Task Force, a blue-ribbon commission composed primarily of prosecutors, police officers, and family court judges, and headed by South Carolina Associate Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal. The Task Force Report identifies many of the problems the State of South Carolina faces with juvenile crime and contains recommendations for improving the state’s juvenile justice system. The non-jury trial of this case began on June 13, 1994 and ended on August 29, 1994. During the course of the trial, the court heard from sixty-six witnesses (including seventeen expert witnesses) and reviewed one hundred and twenty-six exhibits consisting of several thousand pages. As will be seen from the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law which follow, the court has determined that the Plaintiffs have proved that certain conditions of confinement at DJJ facilities violate their constitutional and statutory rights. Rather than imposing a court-ordered remedial scheme, however, the court has determined that the appropriate course of action is to identify the nature and extent of the violations and then to allow the Defendants a reasonable period of time within which to submit a remedial plan to the court for its review. Introduction Before delving into the myriad factual and legal issues presented in this case, the court is compelled to make a few general observations. This case lies at the intersection of two of society’s most pressing concerns: children and the increasing crime rate. The court must be mindful, as an initial proposition, that its role in this litigation is not to attempt to construct a paragon or “model” training school program for DJJ. The court’s role as to the constitutional claims is limited to establishing minimally acceptable constitutional standards. Although the court announced its views in this regard at the outset of the trial, most of the seventeen expert witnesses who testified at trial nevertheless urged upon the court a version of a remedial plan far beyond what the court has determined to be constitutionally required. The court is constrained to conclude that many of these proposals are model programs which the state of South Carolina, through its duly elected representatives, might voluntarily choose to establish, but not programs that are required as a matter of constitutional law. Thus, the court will grant to the Plaintiffs some, but not nearly all, of the relief they seek in this case. Secondly, despite the court’s admonition in its March 81, 1992 order and at several later stages of this litigation, both parties continue to argue that the court should adopt the ACA standards as the constitutional minima. The court must reject the parties’ invitation to adopt these standards. Although ACA standards might represent desirable goals, it is well established that they do not represent the standards minimally acceptable under the Constitution. As noted above, the Defendants have, from the. outset of this litigation, admitted that their facilities are overcrowded. The Plaintiffs and the Defendants, both focusing upon the ACA standards the court has rejected, have determined between themselves that the rated capacity for the three long-term institutions operated by DJJ is 299 juveniles. Testimony at trial indicated to the court that these institutions routinely hold more than twice that number of juveniles. Thus, most of the testimony at the December 1991 trial and the June 1994 trial centered upon the goal of reducing the juvenile correctional population to a figure approaching the ACA-rated capacity of 299 juveniles. The only real areas of dispute in regard to a population ceiling involved the period of time that the court would allow the Defendants to reduce population to this figure, and the appropriate percentage for a “surge factor” by which the Defendants would be allowed to exceed the applicable population ceiling in emergency situations. As will be seen below, the court has determined that it will not order a release of any juveniles from DJJ facilities, but will instead require the Defendants to develop and implement a program for appropriately training and housing juveniles who are committed to DJJ facilities by the family court judges of South Carolina. The court’s decisión not to order a release of juveniles stems from two basic observations: (1) the last dormitories at DJJ facilities were constructed in the 1970s; and (2) since the last dormitories were constructed, the population of South Carolina has increased by nearly forty percent, and violent juvenile crime has skyrocketed, increasing one hundred and forty-nine percent in South Carolina between 1988 and 1992 alone. The court is reluctant to impose on DJJ facilities a population ceiling that is based on an antiquated capacity level which takes no account of the significant increases in population and juvenile delinquency over the past twenty-five years. Instead of ordering the Defendants to release juveniles who have been committed to DJJ facilities by family court judges and kept there by the Juvenile Parole Board, the court will afford the Defendants the opportunity to develop a plan to adequately house and treat these juveniles. This remedial plan may include, at the Defendants’ option, additional dormitories at DJJ facilities in Columbia or, alternatively, several regional community-based correctional facilities. The court’s final observation involves programs to rehabilitate juveniles who are committed to DJJ facilities. As articulated in the South Carolina Children’s Code, the policy of the state with respect to juvenile delinquents is to attempt to rehabilitate juveniles who have been deprived of their liberty through the commitment process of the family courts of South Carolina. The court has determined that in many cases the rehabilitative efforts of DJJ are not working and that juveniles are often returned to society more prone to commit crimes than they were before their incarceration. Compared to the other states in the nation, South Carolina is seventh from the bottom in the amount of money it spends on juvenile corrections and fifth from the top in the rate of adult violent crime. The court has determined that there likely is a correlation between these two figures and that, in some cases, South Carolina juvenile correctional facilities produce graduates who later swell the populations of adult correctional facilities and figure prominently in the ranks of those who later commit violent offenses as adults. Although exact figures are difficult to obtain, the evidence indicates that between fifty-six and eighty-two percent of DJJ juveniles later commit crimes as adults and are sentenced to adult prisons. The court hastens to add that unsuccessful efforts at rehabilitation stem primarily, if not exclusively, from the lack of adequate funding to devise and implement ■programs that will allow juveniles to correct their behavior while they are at DJJ facilities. Historical Development of Juvenile Justice Young offenders have historically presented special problems for the criminal justice system. The idea that juveniles who violate the law should be treated differently from adult offenders originated at the end of the nineteenth century, when Chicago established a separate juvenile court and began to employ the common-law doctrine of parens patriae to protect children from themselves and their parents. Within twenty-five years of the passage of the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899, all but two states had established specialized courts for children. A second revolution in juvenile justice began in 1967, when the United States Supreme Court held that, in juvenile commitment proceedings, juvenile courts must afford to juveniles basic constitutional protections, such as advance notice of the charges, the right to counsel, the right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses, and the right to remain silent. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967). Juveniles are not, however, accorded the full panoply of rights that adult criminal defendants are accorded, such as the right to trial by jury. McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1971). As a result, juvenile courts still process juvenile delinquents in a manner more paternal and diagnostic than that afforded their adult criminal counterparts. In South Carolina, incarceration of juveniles is said to be for beneficent rather than punitive purposes. See S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-20 (Law. Co-op.1985 & Supp.1993). Exclusive jurisdiction over juveniles who are alleged to be delinquent is vested in the ' South Carolina Family Court. S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-400(A)(l)(d), (3) and (4) (Law. Co-op.1985 & Supp.1993). When a family court judge makes a determination of delinquency, the judge has a variety of options: place the child on probation (which may include restitution or community service as a condition of probation); impose a fine of up to $200; order that the child be examined or treated by a physician, psychiatrist, or psychologist; order other care and treatment as the court “considers best”; or commit the child to the custody of a public or private institution. S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-1330 (Law.Co-op.Supp.1993). When a family court judge determines that incarceration may be appropriate, the judge must commit the juvenile to the DJJ Reception and Evaluation Center for a period not to exceed forty-five days. At the Reception and Evaluation Center, DJJ social workers perform an evaluation and make a recommendation to the committing court. The juvenile is then once again taken before the committing judge, who has the option of releasing the juvenile to his or her family or committing the juvenile to one of the three long-term institutions operated by DJJ. By law, the commitment must be for an indeterminate sentence not to extend beyond the juvenile’s twenty-first birthday. S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-2170 (Law.Co-op.Supp.1993). The actual length of stay for the juvenile is determined by the Board of Juvenile Parole, which authorizes release of juveniles based upon internal guidelines developed by the Board. S.C.Code Ann. §§ 20-7-2096 and 20-7-2125 (Law.Co-op.Supp.1993). DJJ thus controls neither its front door nor its back door: Admission to the institutions is controlled by the family courts; release is controlled by the Juvenile Parole Board. The average length of stay for juveniles committed to the long-term institutions is seven months. The DJJ facilities at issue in this litigation are all located behind an escape-resistant fence on a two hundred-acre campus on Broad River Road in Columbia, South Carolina. The oldest facilities date from the late nineteenth century. Historically, the conditions of the juvenile facilities in South Carolina were deficient. In the late 1960s, Howard James, a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, investigated juvenile correctional systems across the country and described South Carolina’s as among the worst in the nation. In response to James’s findings, a special committee of the South Carolina General Assembly conducted a hearing to consider improvements. The testimony of James and others spurred the state legislature to enact reforms and to construct additional youth facilities. Conditions improved so dramatically that, in 1977, in a federal lawsuit over Mississippi’s juvenile correctional facilities, the Commissioner of the South Carolina Department of Youth Services was called as an expert witness to testify about South Carolina’s then state-of-the-art Birchwood facility. See Morgan v. Sproat, 432 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.Miss. 1977) (citing expert testimony of Grady A. DeCell; then Commissioner of the South Carolina Department of Youth Services). Since the mid to late 1970s, however, facilities and programs have once again deteriorated, prompting the filing of this litigation in December 1990. By any measure, juvenile crime has increased dramatically in recent decades. One study by the United States Department of Justice indicates that, nationwide, juvenile arrests for violent crime increased forty-one percent between 1982 and 1991. In 1990, the total estimated delinquency caseload for the United States was 1.26 million cases. The figures in South Carolina are even more staggering; Recent statistics in South Carolina show that the growth rate of juvenile crime has significantly outpaced population growth. All of the experts who testified at trial suggested that the recent increase in juvenile crime is likely to continue, if for no other reason than demographics. By the year 2005, there will be twenty-three percent more teenagers nationwide than there are today. In an effort to identify the causes of the spiralling juvenile crime rate, the court carefully inquired of each of the expert witnesses as to their opinion of the reasons that underlie the increase. The reasons most commonly given may be summarized as follows: a significant increase in the number of single-parent families, involvement with alcohol and other drugs, involvement in gangs and other anti-social groups, exposure to violence in entertainment and in the mass media, and access to firearms. Most juveniles who are at greatest risk of becoming extremely aggressive and violent tend to share some of these common experiences or characteristics that appear to place them on what one organization has termed a “trajectory toward violence.” After receiving the testimony, carefully considering all the evidence, weighing the credibility of the witnesses, reviewing the exhibits and briefs, and studying the applicable law, this court makes the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 52. The court notes that to the extent any of the following findings of fact constitute conclusions of law, they are adopted as such, and to the extent any conclusions of law constitute findings of fact, they are so adopted. FINDINGS OF FACT The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice is the state agency charged with housing and rehabilitating wayward youth in South Carolina between the ages of twelve and seventeen. DJJ case workers around South Carolina processed 24,767 juveniles in fiscal year 1993-94. Most of these juveniles were either diverted from the juvenile justice system or placed on probation by a family court judge. In 1993-94, just eight percent (2,093) of the juveniles who were screened were actually sent to the Reception and Evaluation Center to be considered for confinement at the long-term institutions. Of these, approximately one-half (994) were actually placed at one of the institutions during the last fiscal year. The vast majority of the juveniles who are recommended for long-term placement are those who have committed offenses that society would generally describe as violent or serious. A recent study commissioned by DJJ contains ominous predictions for the future. If present trends in violent juvenile crime continue, by the year 1997 DJJ will need 1,310 beds, and by the year 2002, the department will need a total of 1,899 beds. At the time of trial, population at the long-term institutions ranged from 670 to 730 juveniles. This ease involves the juveniles who are temporarily housed at the Reception and Evaluation Center, as well as those who are confined at the three long-term institutions. These juveniles claim that the basic ambient conditions of confinement — food, shelter, sanitation, living space, health care, recreation, programs, classification, discipline, and personal safety — are so inadequate that exposure to them constitutes a deprivation of their rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As to the internal operation of the institutions, after studying the extensive record in this case, the court has determined that some basic reforms are necessary. The Defendants have already taken steps to implement almost all of these reforms, primarily in response to this lawsuit. These improvements, however, fall far short of the sweeping and intrusive relief the Plaintiffs seek in this case. For the court to grant the full relief sought by the Plaintiffs, in this case would be to involve the court in micro-management of the juvenile institutions in a manner neither required nor sanctioned by the Constitution. As to overcrowding generally, the court has determined that an outright release of juveniles from the institutions — when there are no pre-release centers, halfway houses, or similar facilities available to reintegrate the juveniles into society — is not in the best interest of the juveniles themselves or the public. Alleviation of overcrowded conditions may not be solved by a simplistic meat-ax approach; rather, the Defendants must be ordered to develop new facilities and programs in order to fulfill DJJ’s statutory mission. I The Reception and Evaluation Center The Reception and Evaluation Center is the institution designated to receive and evaluate juveniles considered for long-term confinement by the family court. Approximately 2,000 juveniles pass through the institution each year. By law, a juvenile’s stay at the Reception and Evaluation Center may not exceed forty-five days. At the time of trial, the average stay was twenty-one days. The Reception and Evaluation Center, the oldest of the DJJ institutions, is located separately from the other institutions on Broad River Road. The living units, cafeteria, and school building all appear to have been constructed before the 1950s. The activity building clearly pre-dates World War I. The infirmary and intake operations are housed in what appears to be an old mobile home or portable classroom. Juveniles at this institution are evaluated during their stay, after which they are returned to their home county for disposition by the family court. Disposition is the functional equivalent of sentencing in an adult case. The Reception and Evaluation Center frequently experiences severe overcrowding. The Defendants have announced their intention to close the Reception and Evaluation Center by January 1996. Its functions will be allocated to three regional Reception and Evaluation Centers for which state bond money has already been committed. The state has already acquired the proposed sites, and construction is anticipated to begin shortly. Although the testimony indicated that some of the facilities at the current Reception and Evaluation Center are substandard, the court declines to grant affirmative relief as to this aging institution that will be soon replaced. It would represent an unwise use of scarce resources for the Defendants to attempt to improve the structures at the Reception and Evaluation Center when the Defendants have pressing needs at their other institutions. Moreover, the court finds that the constitutional rights of juveniles who are confined to the Reception and Evaluation Center between the date of this order and the date of the closing of the institution will not be violated in light of the fact that the average stay at Reception and Evaluation is twenty-one days, and the maximum stay, by law, may not exceed forty-five days. Cf. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 543, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1876, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) (“We simply do not believe that requiring a detainee to share toilet facilities and [an] admittedly rather small sleeping space with another person for generally a maximum period of sixty days violates the Constitution.”). II The Long-Term Institutions The three long-term institutions, or training schools, are Willow Lane, John G. Richards, and Birchwood. The long-term institutions generally house between 670 and 720 juveniles. The average length of stay is seven months. Following is a brief description of the physical plant and functions of the three campuses. Willow Lane houses all of the female juveniles, as well as the less aggressive and younger males. The Willow Lane campus consists of some twenty structures generally constructed in 1966 and 1972. The campus contains five dormitories, a cafeteria, and educational, medical, and administrative facilities. The infirmary (constructed in 1972) and the dental facility (constructed in 1977) serve all three long-term campuses. John G. Richards houses older male juveniles and contains many of the special program dorms. The John G. Richards campus, which was generally constructed in the early 1970s, consists of five dormitories, a cafeteria, and administrative and recreational facilities. The campus also contains the “Intake/SPU” unit, which serves as a maximum security facility for the John G. Richards and Willow Lane campuses. The cafeteria facility, constructed in 1970, provides food preparation and dining services for the John G. Richards and Birchwood campuses, as well as for the Reception and Evaluation Center. Birchwood houses the oldest, most aggressive male residents. The Birchwood campus is the newest of the four campuses. Generally constructed in the mid-1970s, the campus contains four dormitories, administrative offices, and vocational and academic educational facilities. It also has an artificially surfaced playing field, a gymnasium, an auditorium, covered picnic shelters, and a baseball diamond. Also located on the Birchwood campus is the Santee unit, a maximum security facility. All of the dormitories on the three campuses of DJJ have air conditioning, heating, hot and cold water, fire detection and sprinkler systems, and water fountains. Most residence halls are arranged with several wings of rooms in a dormitory-style configuration, with a central lavatory/shower facility and one or more common areas for daily activities. In many cases, the common areas are utilized for additional bed space. In general, the architecture of the school facilities at the three campuses appears to be comparable to other educational facilities constructed during the same time frame. Although the Plaintiffs’ claims originally included all four institutions at DJJ, as noted earlier, the court has determined that no affirmative relief is necessary with regard to the Reception and Evaluation Center. The remainder of this order, therefore, will address the totality of the conditions of confinement at the three long-term institutions. Except for the deficiencies noted below, the court finds no other constitutional or statutory violations of the Plaintiffs’ rights. A. Discipline An effective discipline system is necessary in a juvenile correctional institution to aid staff in controlling violence and other inappropriate behavior, to maintain safety and security, and to serve as a training tool for the overall purpose of correcting the juveniles’ behavior. The Plaintiffs mount a variety of attacks against the system of discipline in place at DJJ facilities, which depends primarily upon the use of lock-up units and CS gas to punish juveniles for disciplinary infractions. The Plaintiffs challenge the procedures by which juveniles are placed in lockup units and the Spartan conditions of the lock-up cells themselves. They also seek to have the court impose a one-hour limitation on the duration of their stay in lock-up facilities. ■ They seek an order of this court imposing “less intrusive and more effective methods of maintaining security and control.” The Plaintiffs also seek to have the court prohibit the use of CS gas altogether. With the exception of the use. of CS gas, discussed more fully below, the court has determined that the United States Constitution does not require this court’s intervention in the disciplinary procedures at DJJ. Use of CS Gas CS gas is a potent form of tear gas used primarily for riot control. It draws its name from Ben Courson and Roger Staughton, the American chemists who developed it. The evidence at trial disclosed that, until recently, DJJ agency policy permitted the use of CS gas to “maintain control,” as well as to prevent harm or the threat of harm to individuals. CS gas irritates the mucous membranes of those who are exposed to it. Exposure to the gas causes instant pain and spasms in the eyelids, coughing fits, and breathing problems. Documented studies indicate that CS gas can cause damage to the cornea and potential blindness; damage to the skin, such as chemical burns, blistering, and scarring; and severe complications for asthmatics, including respiratory damage and chronic lung disease. CS gas has been used on a fairly regular basis in the DJJ institutions. The Defendants’ own records indicate that gas was used on juveniles more than 180 times in the 1993 calendar year. To its credit, DJJ requires that strict records be maintained any time gas is used on a juvenile. After reviewing the Defendants’ use of force/gas reports, however, the court finds that gas has been used for purposes other than the protection ■ of staff or others. Indeed, the Defendants’ own records indicate that gas was used “to enforce an order” in more than fifty incidents in 1993. The court finds that the use of CS gas upon juveniles is counterproductive. It causes more anger in the juveniles toward the adults who are supposed to be caring for them. The use of gas as a form of punishment teaches the victims to inflict pain as a method of controlling others and makes the juveniles more volatile, more aggressive, and less likely to respond properly to authority figures. Moreover, the inappropriate use of CS gas may cause long-term medical complications for the juveniles. For these reasons, the court concludes that the indiscriminate use of CS gas violates the juveniles’ constitutional rights under the Due Process Clause. Based upon the testimony presented on this issue, the court finds that gas should be used only when a genuine risk of serious bodily harm to another exists and other less intrusive methods of restraint are not reasonably available. At trial, DJJ Director Flora Brooks Boyd testified that she intended to implement a new policy regarding the use of CS gas consistent with the requirements stated above. She also testified that she plans to maintain a reliable system to monitor gas use and will personally review every incident in which gas is used. The Defendants should therefore include a detailed plan for the use of CS gas, consistent with the requirements of this section, as part of the overall plan submitted in response to this court’s order. Except for the use of CS gas, the court finds no other constitutional deficiencies in the discipline system at DJJ facilities. For this court to intervene in the routine administration of disciplinary programs at DJJ would be to substitute the court’s judgment for that of trained penological authorities charged with the administration of DJJ facilities. B. Fire Safety The Plaintiffs presented testimony on one issue related to fire safety: whether securing the individual cells of the two lock-up units, known as Santee and the SPU unit, with padlocks creates an unreasonable risk of harm to the juveniles who are confined in these units. At DJJ, the greatest risk of harm from fires is from mattress fires. Mattress fires emit insufficient heat to set off the sprinkler system, but cause substantial amounts of smoke which can be fatal to the occupants of the units if those juveniles are not removed quickly. In each of the two disciplinary units at DJJ, the thirty individual cells are all secured with individual padlocks. In the event of a fire, each cell must be opened by hand, a time-consuming process which constitutes an unreasonable risk of harm to the Plaintiffs housed in these two units. The court thus concludes that the use of individual padlocks on the cells in the Santee and SPU lock-up units unreasonably infringes upon the Plaintiffs’ safety interest. While locking devices are undoubtedly necessary for security and control, there are alternative locking methods available which do not have the same degree of inherent risk to safety. During the trial, the Defendants agreed to install a “gang” locking system for these units, which would allow supervisory personnel to simultaneously unlock all doors in the event of a fire. The court finds that such a system would be adequate to protect the safety interests of the Plaintiffs. The Defendants should include a reasonable timetable for the incorporation of a gang locking system into the two lock-up units as a part of the remedial plan submitted in response to this order. C. Food Service Juveniles at the John G. Richards and Willow Lane institutions dine in the dining facilities on those campuses. Neither Birch-wood nor the Reception and Evaluation Center has its own cafeteria facility. Food is prepared at John G. Richards and shipped to Birchwood for two meals, and the juveniles at Birchwood are transported to John G. Richards for the third meal each day. Similarly, food is transported from John G. Richards to the Reception and Evaluation Center for service to the juveniles at that institution. At trial, several juveniles, and even the food services director, testified that frequently cockroaches and other foreign matter are present in the food served to the juveniles. The court finds that the Defendants have an obligation to provide minimally adequate nourishment to juveniles housed at their institutions, and that food containing cockroaches and other foreign matter falls below what may be deemed minimally adequate. The Defendants have conceded that they must eliminate these problems and have begun measures to correct them. At trial, the food services director testified that the department has entered into a new contract with an exterminator, has installed new doors and weatherstripping in response to a consultant’s suggestion, and has implemented improved procedures for washing utensils and trays. As a part of the remedial plan submitted in this case, the Defendants should furnish a progress report on these and any other improvements that will assure the removal of cockroaches and other foreign matter from food served to juveniles at DJJ. D. Classification . Classification, for the purposes of. this case, is the process of separating aggressive juveniles from passive ones and determining appropriate levels of restraint for each juvenile based upon the threat the juvenile presents to other juveniles and to the public. The juveniles possess a clearly recognized liberty interest in being free from unreasonable threats to their physical safety. See Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 315-16, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 2457-58, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982). On the other hand, the general public is entitled to reasonable protection from juveniles incarcerated at DJJ. For these reasons, juveniles in DJJ facilities should be screened, and classified, so that the aggressive juveniles are identified and separated from more passive juveniles. The level of restraint to be used for each juvenile should be .based upon some rational professional judgment as to legitimate safety and security needs. Inherent in this right is a system of periodic review of the initial placement to evaluate whether subsequent events demonstrate the need for a reclassification of the juvenile’s security requirements. Until recently, a rational and minimally adequate system of classification did not exist at DJJ. Safety to juveniles and to the public was occasionally threatened by this deficiency. In response to this litigation, the Defendants have recognized their obligation to establish a minimally adequate classification system and, by the time of the court’s last visit on October 11,1994, had begun to fulfill that obligation by placing into operation a special department, known as the Admissions Unit, to appropriately classify and place juveniles in the long-term institutions. The court finds that the Admissions Unit should satisfy the requirements of the Constitution in terms of classification. The full details of the classification system that has been established should be included in the overall remedial plan submitted to the court for its review. E. Education . The campus of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice is an independent school district subject to all state and federal laws regarding public education. All juveniles in the four institutions attend school from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., five days a week. Unlike their counterparts in the traditional school system, however, juveniles at DJJ are required to attend school year round. Students generally attend the school associated with the campus where they reside, although students who- are ahead of or behind most of their peers may be transported to another school on the DJJ campus. At Birchwood -High School, vocational education is available in a number of fields, such as graphic art and communication, automobile mechanics and body work, vocational rehabilitation work program, carpentry, building construction, and introduction to personal computers. Generally speaking, classes at the DJJ schools are small, with a sixteen-to-one student/teacher ratio in regular education and an eight-to-one student/teacher ratio in special education. The average DJJ student is three years below his or her expected grade level. The educational program is highly remedial, allowing extensive mainstreaming of juveniles receiving special education. The court finds that there are a disproportionately high number of juveniles at DJJ school facilities who are suffering from a “disability” as that term is defined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794 et seq. As a recipient of federal funds, DJJ is under a legal obligation to identify and evaluate juveniles who are in need of special education and related services. For juveniles who are thus identified, the educational institution must formulate and implement an “Individualized Education Program” (IEP) for the juvenile. As of the time of trial, the percentage of juveniles in special education programs at DJJ schools ranged between 17.9% (at Birch-wood) and 32.5% (at Willow Lane). The Defendants’ own educators admitted that perhaps as many as fifty percent of the juveniles at DJJ are in need of special education. The court finds that the Defendants have not adequately identified juveniles in need of special, education and, ■ in some instances, have not fully formulated and implemented IEPs for those juveniles who have been identified. Much of the difficulty that DJJ has experienced in this regard stems from two problems not of its own making. First, local school districts around South Carolina have traditionally been reluctant to forward a juvenile’s school records when he or she is sent to DJJ. And second, the South Carolina Department of Education has interpreted IDEA and Section 504 rigidly, requiring DJJ to formulate not one but two IEPs for the juvenile: one during the juvenile’s brief stay at the Reception and Evaluation Center and another if -and when the juvenile is confined to a long-term institution. The court finds that the inability to obtain proper school records and the burdensome requirement of formulating an interim IEP for juveniles at the Reception and Evaluation Center have impaired the Defendants’ ability to properly identify and serve juveniles confined to the long-term institutions who are in need of special education services. As will be seen in the Conclusions of Law section of this order, these two impediments to full implementation of IDEA and Section 504 have now been removed. With these obstacles out of the way, the court must expect full compliance with all federal statutes regarding educational needs of students with disabilities. Aside from the deficiencies noted above, the court finds that no other aspect of the education program at DJJ violates the juveniles’ constitutional or statutory rights on a class-wide basis. F. Medical Services Among the traditionally recognized liberty interests of the Plaintiff class that survive confinement is the right to minimally adequate health care. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103, 97 S.Ct. 285, 290, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). Testimony at trial disclosed that medical resources for the various DJJ institutions are stretched to the limit. The institutions are forced to rely upon only three full-time nurses and a handful of part-time nurses to serve a population totaling almost 900 juveniles. One medical doctor is under contract to visit the facilities once a week for a total of three hours. For this reason, DJJ is forced to rely upon emergency rooms at local hospitals for matters, such as cuts requiring sutures, that could be handled in house much more efficiently and less expensively. Both the medical experts and the DJJ medical staff testified that the inadequate number of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians prevents DJJ from providing appropriate medical care and places the health of all juveniles in the population at risk. At minimum, DJJ should employ a sufficient number of trained medical staff to provide the basic components of a medical system for the institutions. Central to the issue of medical staffing is the necessity of a supervising physician to assure that the overall system is functioning properly to meet the health needs of the population. Nursing staff should be available to adequately provide daily review of sick call requests, to administer reasonably prompt medical care, and to train other staff members in identifying and monitoring the juveniles’ illnesses. Acting to correct an admittedly deficient system, DJJ has contracted with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) to run the health care program at the DJJ facilities. At trial, the Defendants were optimistic that the unconstitutional conditions regarding health care would be cured if and when DHEC begins providing services. During the trial of this case, the Defendants were still working out the details of the arrangement with DHEC; therefore, the Defendants must submit the final proposal with DHEC to the court for its review as part of the overall plan submitted in this case. G. Grievance/Ombudsman System The court finds no violation of the juveniles’ constitutional rights in regard to the operation of the grievance and ombudsman system at DJJ facilities. Were this court to order the reforms to the grievance and ombudsman system suggested by the Plaintiffs’ counsel, the court would impermis-sibly be encroaching upon a policy decision better left to the agency. H. Access to Legal Assistance The Plaintiffs contend that they are constitutionally entitled to reasonable access to the courts during their stay at DJJ and that the court should order the Defendants to provide “an adequate law library or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law.” Although the Supreme Court has extended such protections to adult prisoners incarcerated for violations of the law, see Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1498, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), the Court has never extended its holding to juvenile delinquents being housed at training schools for a beneficent purpose.. Admittedly, one district court has extended the right of access to courts to juvenile facilities; but it did so primarily .because the stipulated record in that case disclosed that most of the juveniles had been committed to the institutions without having been represented by legal counsel. See Morgan v. Sproat, 432 F.Supp. 1130, 1158 (S.D.Miss.1977). Moreover, the court in Morgan merely accepted a proposal by the defendants that juveniles be notified that they might contact a community legal services association if they needed legal service. The situation in South Carolina is quite different. State law provides that any juvenile involved in a delinquency proceeding that may result in commitment to an institution has the right to retain counsel or the right to court-appointed counsel at state expense if he or she cannot afford an attorney. S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-740 (Law.Co-op.1985). In like manner, state law provides that juveniles appearing before the Juvenile Parole Board have the right to counsel of their choice or court-appointed counsel if they cannot afford such assistance. S.C.Code Ann. § 20-7-2105 (Law.Co-op.1985). Furthermore, state law provides that after an initial waiting period, each juvenile has the right to appear before the Juvenile Parole Board every three months for the purpose of parole consideration. S.C.Code Arm. § 20-7-2095 (Law.Co-op.Supp.1993). In addition, the evidence at trial disclosed that juveniles are permitted periodic contacts with the outside world. and thus would have the ability to secure the services of a legal aid society or other appropriate legal representative. Because the state of South Carolina provides ample opportunity for court-appointed legal representation — both at the time of commitment and as frequently as once every' three months for parole consideration — and because DJJ does not prohibit the juveniles from periodic contacts with the outside world, the court finds that the Plaintiffs have not been deprived of a right to reasonable access to the courts. In regard to the request for a law library, the court finds that the Plaintiffs have no constitutional right to a law library. As a practical matter, juveniles between the ages of twelve and nineteen, who’, on average, are three years behind their expected grade level, would not benefit in any significant respect from a law library, and the provision of such would be a foolish expenditure of funds. I. Programs It was apparent from the testimony in this case that programming geared toward correcting the behavior of juveniles is central to the very nature of a juvenile training facility. Virtually every witness who testified in the case asserted that appropriate programming can make a difference and substantially enhance the juveniles’ opportunity to succeed upon release from confinement. Ms. Marlene McClain, the Chairman of the Juvenile Parole Board, testified that the Board would release juveniles sooner (and thereby reduce overcrowding) if DJJ maintained a minimally adequate level of programming. Additionally, because such programming improves the juveniles’ behavior while confined, it reduces the need for disciplinary lock-up and enhances the safety of the institution for the juveniles and the staff. Without minimally adequate programming, the agency is simply warehousing the juveniles and ignoring the statutory purpose of their confinement. As journalist Howard James observed, “Too often all that society provides [for juveniles] is storage — like ripe peaches in a warm cellar.” The court finds that, under the Constitution, a minimally adequate level of programming is required in order to provide juveniles with a reasonable opportunity to accomplish the purpose of their confinement, to protect the safety of the juveniles and the staff, and to ensure the safety of the community once the juveniles are ultimately released. Minimally adequate program services should be designed to teach juveniles the basic principles that are essential to correcting their conduct. These generally recognized principles include: (1) taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions; (2) learning appropriate ways of responding to others (coping skills); (3) learning to manage their anger; and (4) developing a positive sense of accomplishment. It is in the area of programming that conditions at DJJ have improved most during •the pendency of this litigation. When this action was initiated, the Defendants offered the juveniles a very limited number of programs: anger management, drug and alcohol therapy, and, if appropriate, sex offender treatment. Since this lawsuit was filed, however, the Defendants have initiated several innovative programs, including the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) Program, the START Program, the Cities in Schools Program, and the Omega Boys Choir. Juveniles who opt to participate in these programs and who meet the entrance requirements are housed in special dormitories. Preliminary data from all of these programs indicate that the juveniles are much better behaved while in the system, are paroled at their minimum guidelines, and do well after they are released from confinement. The administrators of these programs reported that there is little or no violence in these dorms and that CS gas is not used. None of the twenty-two graduates of the JROTC program has been rearrested, and only about fifteen percent of the START graduates have returned to confinement. Significantly, all of the juveniles in these special programs are housed in dormitories that exceed, to some extent, the ACA-rated capacity for population. Rehabilitative efforts are successful with these groups of juveniles, however, because the programs take the juveniles out of the overcrowded dormitories for substantial periods of time and provide juveniles with reasonable opportunities to correct them behavior. At trial, the Defendants conceded that they have an obligation to develop effective programming for all of the juveniles housed at DJJ facilities. The programs described above have been implemented incrementally and presently serve no more than half of the juveniles housed at DJJ facilities. For the juveniles who are not enrolled in these special programs, the Defendants must develop a reasonable timetable for developing minimally acceptable programs, as defined herein, for juveniles during their stay at DJJ. J. Overcrowding and Staff Levels At present, the number of juveniles housed in the DJJ long-term institutions remains at a fairly constant level between 670 to 720 juveniles. The Defendants have conceded in' their pleadings that the facilities at issue in this litigation are overcrowded in a constitutional sense. Thus, the only questions to be resolved by this court are the extent of the overcrowding and the appropriate remedy. The Plaintiffs seek to have the court adopt standards promulgated by the American Correctional Association, which, if applied to the institutions in dispute here, would yield a total rated capacity of only 299 juveniles. The Plaintiffs would have the court order the periodic release of juveniles until the population at DJJ approaches the ACA figure. The Defendants initially conceded that the ACA standards were applicable in this, case, but by the time of the June 1994 trial, they had modified their position so as to assert that a population reduction to between 450 to 520 juveniles is appropriate. As will be seen in the Conclusions of Law section of this opinion, the court must respectfully decline the invitation to adopt the ACA standards as the constitutional minimum. The Supreme Court itself has declared that such standards represent “goals” of the sponsoring organization, but do not establish the benchmark from which constitutional determinations may be made. For this reason, the court’s findings regarding overcrowding are based not upon ACA standards, but upon the court’s review of the extensive record in this case and its three visits to the institutions under challenge. Additionally, as the court noted in its March 31,1992 order, the overcrowding issue may not be considered in a vacuum. The issues of population, program effectiveness, physical plant, staffing, security, and other conditions of confinement have a direct bearing upon one another. The court finds that a reasonable level of population at DJJ is that level which provides the minimum amount of physical space juveniles need for adequate living conditions and does not unreasonably threaten safety or unreasonably frustrate the purpose of confinement. Applying this standard to the facilities at issue here, the court concludes that the long-term institutions at DJJ currently house more juveniles than the Constitution will allow. All of the witnesses, including administration and staff of DJJ, agreed that at current population levels, DJJ’s systems relating to security and safety are overburdened to such an extent that DJJ cannot adequately perform its mission. The witnesses agreed that overpopulation interferes with the underlying purpose of correcting the juveniles’ behavior and providing safety for the general public. This testimony is corroborated by the current recidivism rate for DJJ adolescents (as high as eighty-two percent) and the periodic escapes of juveniles from the institutions. As noted previously, the court visited the facilities in dispute on three occasions. These visits confirmed that many of the dormitories are severely overcrowded. For example, the Moultrie dormitory on the Birch-wood campus has twenty individual rooms, but sometimes houses as many as ninety juveniles. At Moultrie, beds are routinely placed in the hallways and in the dayrooms. The beds in the dayrooms are scarcely two feet apart, leaving the juveniles with hardly enough room to maneuver to their beds from the doorway. Occasionally, mattresses must be placed on the floor. Having determined that the long-term institutions are overcrowded, the court is nevertheless constrained to conclude that an order reducing overpopulation by the simple expedient of releasing juveniles is not in the best interest of the juveniles or the public, nor is it required by the Constitution. As has been noted, the last dormitories at the long-term institutions began operating in the mid-1970s. In South Carolina, population generally, and juvenile crime in particular, have both increased dramatically since that time. It would be an understatement to say that DJJ’s building program has not proceeded apace with the significant growth in population and juvenile delinquency in South Carolina; there has, in fact, been no building program for the past twenty-five years. Thus, any effort to reduce overcrowding by working down to the design capacity of the present buildings is necessarily flawed because it is premised on the indefensible notion that the number of juveniles who need to be incarcerated in South Carolina in 1995 equals the number of bed spaces that were constructed on the DJJ campus a quarter century ago. The Plaintiffs argue that the court could order an immediate release of 200 juveniles with no threat to public. safety. The Plaintiffs base this argument upon the notion that a significant number of juveniles incarcerated at the long-term facilities are “lightweight” offenders who have been sent to DJJ for relatively minor infractions. While the argument that relatively non-violent offenders should immediately be released to alleviate overcrowding has obvious superficial appeal, the court has determined that very few juveniles incarcerated at the long-term facilities fall into this category. As previously noted, only about four percent of the approximately 24,000 juveniles who are processed through the family courts of South Carolina each year end up in the long-term institutions. In other words, DJJ intake workers and family court judges exercise their discretion in favor of diversion and probation in an extremely high number of cases, reserving long-term institution beds for more-violent juveniles truly in need of secure confinement. In an effort to obtain a fair assessment of the types of juveniles committed to the long-term institutions, the court requested the Defendants to provide confinement records of all juveniles who were housed at the long-term institutions one month prior to trial. The Defendants furnished these records, and the court has reviewed them in exhaustive detail. These records reveal that, for the most part, the juveniles confined at the long-term institutions have committed serious offenses and require secure confinement. For example, Table 1 attached to this order summarizes the offenses for which juveniles were committed to DJJ as of May 4, 1994. Although over half of these juveniles were committed for a “serious/violent” offense as defined by DJJ, the department’s definition is underinclusive — it does not accurately reflect the gravity of the offenses for which the other juveniles are committed. As Table 1 indicates, crimes such as carrying a weapon on school grounds, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, and possession of LSD or cocaine with intent to distribute are not classified by DJJ as serious or violent crimes. Contrary to the assertions of some of the witnesses in this ease, a relatively insignificant number of juveniles at DJJ have been committed for minor property offenses or status offenses. Most of the juveniles who are not classified by DJJ as violent or serious offenders have nevertheless demonstrated severe .antisocial conduct dangerous to the general public. As an additional reason for declining to order a release of juveniles, an outright release of juveniles to their homes would not serve the rehabilitative goal enunciated by the Children’s Code. The parties have argued, and the experts have suggested, that juveniles released pursuant to an order of this court could be sent to “community based” facilities to assist them with their reintegration into society. In fact, DJJ has precious few such community-based programs in place, and those that are in operation are, like the long-term facilities, stretched to the limit. The evidence disclosed that, outside of the Columbia campuses, DJJ has available a total of ninety-six group home beds, sixty long-term foster care beds, and one hundred and ten marine institute beds. These facilities are all operating at maximum capacity levels. Moreover, a large percentage of these slots are in facilities that are owned and operated by private groups who have contracted with DJJ to provide services to a small number of juveniles who meet stringent eligibility criteria. In short, the limited number of community-based programs presently, available — all of which are operating at capacity levels — are not capable of absorbing additional juveniles released from the long-term institutions. Because these community-based alternative programs are operating at full capacity, if the court were to order a release of juveniles from the long-term facilities, the court would, for all practical purposes, be ordering an outright release of juveniles to their homes without even minimal efforts at supervision or rehabilitation. Such a practice would disserve juveniles who would then receive even less rehabilitation than they are currently receiving at DJJ long-term facilities. If this court accepts, as it must, the proposition that the overriding purpose of juvenile commitment in South Carolina is rehabilitation, then the court may not order an outright release of juveniles as a constitutional remedy when such a release would serve no rehabilitative purpose. Moreover, this court cannot' ignore what the Supreme Court has described as the “legitimate and compelling state interest in protecting the community from crime.” Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253, 264-65, 104 S.Ct. 2403, 2410, 81 L.Ed.2d 207 (1984). As the Supreme Court noted in Schall, the