THE POINT WAS MISSED DURING WNPR INTERVIEW

Department of Children and Family Commissioner Joette Katz and Deputy DCF Commissioner Fernando Muniz were interviewed December 22, 2016 on WNPR radio at 9:00am. The first segment of this interview focused on the handling of clients within the care of DCF, mishandled cases, and systemic concerns. Then the interview shifted to discussing closing Connecticut Juvenile Training School in 2018. This facility houses adjudicated male residents in a secure locked down facility. Severe criticism about how CJTS Youth Service Officers handle restraining residents, high costs of maintaining the facility, and offering more therapeutic services to residents were offered as reasons for closing CJTS. Oh by the way all this chatter came from lawmakers over the last year or so.

However all of the chatter on WNPR missed the point. Both DCF Commissioners danced around real issues about CJTS and why it is closing. It is interesting how Deputy Commissioner Muniz answered questions about CJTS. I guess his commentary about a facility with mostly residents of color incarcerated gave the show authenticity. Muniz stayed on message by citing how  financial savings in closing CJTS might be transferred to other service agencies [ even though legislators will make that decision not DCF ], he then stated the need to change CJTS from a punitive facility to a more therapeutic one. Muniz did not discuss how  CJTS management ran a dysfunctional facility for years. Nor did this blog writer hear anything about allegations of racism at CJTS from employees of color that roiled that facility and led to a class action lawsuit, public protests outside that facility... not to mention unfavorable media attention. For some strange reason Joette Katz and Fernando Muniz are ignoring the obvious i.e. within DCF as an agency dysfunctional behavior is overlooked. Now Katz and Muniz will retort that their agency has taken steps to deal with instances of incompetent workers. Yet that same standard is not applied to the KeyStone Cops management that ran CJTS literally into the ground. It will make no difference if CJTS is moved to another area or there are more therapeutic services made available for residents in the future. When you have management that by their silence condones racial animus, embraces mistreatment of Youth Services Officers, allows overtime to be handed out to favored employees ... there will always be problems. When you have all white top management at CJTS turning away from honest dialogue about issues with employees .. there will always be problems.

It is noted how CJTS closing was discussed during the last segment of WNPR and people called to complain about their personal issues about child care. CJTS is a textbook example of how not to run a facility while maintaining the same top management for years.

And the band played on.