The 13th Step - Introducing “The Youth Development Center”

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Introducing the newest series from NHPR’s award-winning Document team: “The Youth Development Center.” New Hampshire has sent its most troubled kids to the same juvenile detention center for more than a century. It's a place that was supposed to nurture them, that instead hurt them – in some of the worst ways imaginable. It's now at the center of one of the biggest youth detention scandals in American history. How did this happen – and how did it finally come to light?If you have suffered abuse and need someone to talk to, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. If you’re in a mental health crisis, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 9-8-8.

Hey, everyone. It's Lauren Chooljian. I'm here to tell you about a new podcast that I really hope you'll make the time to listen to. It comes from my colleague and pal, Jason Moon. You'll likely remember Jason from his work on the 13th step. Jason is an incredibly thoughtful and diligent reporter. You heard him talk me through all my feelings about the vandalism. And Jason is also the guy you heard reporting from federal court when arrests were made. Well, Jason just launched a powerful new series called the Youth Development Center. Like the 13th step, the Youth Development Center is a hard but very important listen. Jason brings you into New Hampshire's juvenile jail, a place that was nearly impossible to

access for decades, despite the fact that it's a state-run facility, so funded by state tax dollars, and it deals with some of the most vulnerable kids in our state. The place is like a black box. And what Jason found in there, it's shocking and heartbreaking. You're gonna feel a lot of feelings on this journey,

but I don't know any reporter better than Jason to tackle a story like this, and I hope you will give it a listen. To make it easy for you, we've put the first episode in this feed. And if you want to hear the rest of this three-part series, follow the Youth Development Center on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Andy Perkins wanted to get it right, to keep all the memories straight. So we wrote it down. In three Word documents, Andy typed out a personal history of his time at a place called YDC, the Youth Development Center. Andy had just reached out to some lawyers, and he figured it would be important to get all the stories together in one place. I'm worried I didn't put something in that would be needed. I'm worried I'll hear that I didn't get all the stories in the correct order or something

crazy like that. These things happen. It was 30 years ago. I remember these things extremely vividly. What I don't remember for sure is exact timing and some events that surround these. YDC was the juvenile jail for the state of New Hampshire. Judges sent boys and girls there for all kinds of reasons.

Sometimes a serious violent act, like an assault or even a murder, but usually much smaller things, like stealing or running away from home. For Andy, it was a burglary. He and a friend broke into a house that Andy says was a party spot for local kids. He says they found some cocaine inside and they used it. And then Andy says they trashed the place. He was 14. First, the judge sent him to a group home, then a wilderness therapy camp. Then Andy need a staffer at the camp in the groin. The judge declared Andy was a

danger to society. So off to YDC, the last stop in the state's juvenile justice system. I was scared. I was terrified. It was real, you know, jail. The doors, everything, you know, especially the door sound I think bothered me the most. That clicking sound. It's so final. It's so, you know, you're shut off from the world. At YDC, kids were separated into several buildings staff called cottages. Air quotes there because these were detention facilities. Blocky brick buildings with cells inside. Each cottage had a different name.

Andy was assigned to East Cottage. Today Andy is in his late 40s. Dark hair and a wiry frame. And despite the sobering story that he shared with me, he has this optimism. He's always ending his text messages to me with a smiley face. It's an outlook he brought even to this letter, describing his first few months as a 15-year-old at YDC. I want to point out some of the positive.

The eldest staff at East Cottage were mostly decent humans in my experience. There was one staff specifically named Eric at East. He knew my family was poor. He saw that I had no money for sodas and other perks that others did have. He would bring in furniture for me to sand and pay my account so I could have money for the extras. I decided to work on getting released and began that quest. I went out of my way to look good. I would stay up late and wax the floors on occasion. I made sure I was respectful to staff and other residents. The depression I had been suffering was lifting and I felt good.

Andy didn't stay at East Cottage for long. Cottages at YDC had different levels of security and restrictions for the kids. Good behavior could earn you a spot in the more relaxed cottage, Pinecrest. At Pinecrest you could earn weekends home to see your family. Pinecrest was the way home. That had been my goal since the first group home. I earned my way to Pinecrest and felt really good about myself. The staff at Pinecrest would lead back and let us get away with a lot more than East Cottage. They brought us on field trips, gave us freedom and trust.

I have no complaints about the staff at Pinecrest. This was also when my estranged father showed up out of the blue to visit me. I'd only seen him twice in my life until then. Yeah, I have a second. I didn't expect that. Jesus. Do you want to take a break? No, just a second. I had asked Andy to read this letter out loud for me in a studio at NHPR. No, just a second. I had asked Andy to read this letter out loud for me in a studio at NHPR.

It wasn't easy for him. There were moments when Andy's feelings suddenly rushed to the surface, like this one, when he got to the part about his dad. Andy struggled with his father's absence as a kid, and his relationship with his mom wasn't great either. So just imagine the mix of hope and trepidation in 15-year-old Andy. His absent dad suddenly shows up at YDC and tells him he's going to try to get him out of there so that Andy can move in with him. Andy is excited, and he says he goes on his best behavior.

And eventually, it earns him a weekend pass from YDC to visit his dad's house. I was told I had to speak to Lucian before I went home. I was asked go to my staff from Pinecrest. I think it was Al that brought me, I don't remember his last name, to the main building. I took a seat in front of Lucian's desk. He told Al he would call him to pick me up after we were done talking. Al left and Lucian sat at his desk. Lucian asked why he should let me go home for the weekend. I was confused. I had never spoken to Lucian and thought I had done everything required. I replied, I've done everything

I was told I needed to do, plus volunteer for extra jobs. Lucian laughed and said, you haven't done everything. I asked what I had done wrong. Lucian laughed again and then replied, it's not about you did wrong, it's about what have you done for me? I was very confused. I barely ever spoken to this guy. What the hell does he mean? I thought. Told him I didn't understand. He asked how badly I wanted to go home. I told him it's all I can think about. I told him how much I miss all my friends and family. Told him I did what I was told was needed, but if I missed something I would make up for it.

Lucian giggled and said, Good. I'll never forget how he said the word good. It was evil. Lucian then said, let's get started. He pushed his wheeled dust chair from behind the desk so I could see all of him. You could see it in every action through his pants. He slapped his inner thighs and said, I need help with this.

I couldn't look at him after this and didn't know what to do. I felt sick. He kept telling me to look at it. Look at me. Look at it. It's okay. Don't be shy. He kept talking.

Five minutes from now you could be going home. Let's look at it. He began to unzip his pants. I stood up and walked to the door. It was locked. I started to panic. I was scared. When I finally could speak I said, it's okay. I'll just stay at the cottage. I don't want to go home anymore. He told me to sit down. I begged him just let me leave. He got angry, zipped his pants up, and yelled,

I knew you didn't want to go home, he said. Andy says, before Lucian kicked him out of his office that day, he warned him. You know they won't believe you if you say anything. Lucian was an adult, a supervisor at YDC. Andy was just a kid. And more than that, he was a quote-unquote bad kid. So Lucian was probably right. Who was going to believe him?

For three decades, Andy didn't really talk about YDC. And then he saw something on the news. The faces of some of the same YDC staff, not just Lucien, who had abused him. And Andy realized he wasn't the only person with a story about YDC. So he called some lawyers, started writing that letter. 30 years after he left the facility, Andy Perkins learned his story was part of the biggest government scandal in state history.

From New Hampshire Public Radio, I'm Jason Moon, andDC doesn't look so bad. More like a small college campus than a jail. To get there, you cross through a suburban neighborhood, then turn up a long, leafy road. The land used to be a farm. It belonged to the revolutionary war hero who came up with New Hampshire's famous state motto, live free or die. The whole idea of YDC goes back to the 1850s. It had a different name back then, but same campus and roughly same idea.

A place for the state to shelter, educate, and nurture troubled kids instead of sending them to adult jails and prisons. Back when it started, that was kind of a radical idea. And the people in charge of YDC loved to promote it. As far back as 1879, YDC was pitched as a place of reform, a quote, pleasant home, not a prison. It was built to save the kids who were sent there.

But in the early 1990s, that is not how Andy Perkins felt. That day he walked out of Lucian's office, he was scared, and Lucian's warning was ringing in his ears. You know they won't believe you if you say anything. Lucian Paulette declined to comment for this story through an attorney. This is the first time Andy has told this story publicly. Which is a big deal because normally YDC is a black box. Since it's a juvenile facility almost all of the records are confidential. For the same reason you can't just call or write a letter to a

kid inside to ask them how things are going. You can't even learn the names of the kids inside. Their families can visit. But a lot of the kids at YDC were there because of an unstable home life. So it's not easy to find out what's happening in YDC. If you drive up to the campus and just start looking around, you'll get kicked out. Believe me. And all this is why I want you to hear from Andy. Not just because he was there and wrote down his experience in powerful writing, but because he also came with receipts. Andy requested his own resident file from YDC, and then he shared it with me.

So the first thing when I started going through all that was, you know, I'm seeing this stuff and it's bringing back memories, but what really, really, really slammed me was seeing my picture. And if you look, in the very first picture, I still, I was still okay, you know. I could see it in my eyes, I was still a kid. But not after that. Look at the subsequent ones. I don't know. The file is a collection of all kinds of documents about Andy's journey through the juvenile justice system. The pictures Andy found are from different points at his time at YDC, from 1991 to 1993, from 15 to 18 years old.

There's a report on the items Andy had on him when he was booked at YDC. One sweater, one pair of jeans, one gold metal colored chain. Even some of Andy's worksheets from the on-campus school at YDC. But there were a few records that really caught my eye. A couple of handwritten reports by YDC staff about a time when they say they physically

restrained Andy. And Andy says something much worse happened. I never got to see this back then, but I'm looking at their reports on what happened and well, theirs doesn't make sense and then you're in mine and you're like, oh. I'm going to walk you through this moment so you can hear for yourself how staff described it in their own words. The incident involves two former YDC staffers, Gordon Thomas Searles and John McDonald. I'm just going to let you know now that you're not going to hear from them.

Gordon Searles declined to comment through an attorney. John McDonald is dead. The incident happens on June 21, 1993. Andy is 17 years old. It's been a couple of years since that moment in Lucian's office. It's clear that something goes down in Andy's room. But it's hard to say what exactly, because Gordon and John's reports,

they don't quite match up. Gordon writes that he went into Andy's room because he was being loud. Then Gordon writes that, quote, Andy started up again, being very mouthy. Andy got up quick. I grabbed Andy's left arm and restrained, and I had him against the wall, end quote.

But John, his report says he and Gordon restrained Andy two separate times, first in Andy's room, and then again after they moved him to a second room. During one of the restraints, John writes, quote, I could see that Andy's temper was starting to escalate, and I thought he was going to get up off his bed. John says they held Andy down on the bed until he calmed down. These reports were written the day after the incident.

So the fact they don't even agree on the number of times they restrained Andy is a little suspicious. So is there justification for why they needed to hold down a 17-year-old? Quote, I thought he was going to get up off his bed. No indication that Andy was dangerous in any way. And then the way they describe how they handled Andy, it's all cloaked in euphemisms.

At one point, John says they, quote, guided Andy to the bed. Here's what Andy says really happened that day. He wrote about it in his letter that he read to me in the studio. Andy starts the story a bit before the incident. During one of our counseling sessions with Gordon, Tommy, he let us ask him some questions. I asked where he had went to school for psychology. I assumed that he must have gone to college for that if he was a counselor.

I asked because I figured it would be a community type college. He was terrible at being a counselor. I kept that thought to myself. I got a more physical answer than verbal. He stood up, grabbed me by the collar and said, still running your fucking mouth? He led me to my cell and pushed me through the door. All I could say was, what did I do wrong? I only asked you when you went to college. Tommy said, you know you're trying to make me look bad. In Andy's version, it all goes down in his cell. Andy is sitting on his bed.

Gordon Thomas Searles, who Andy sometimes refers to as Tommy or Tom in his letter, is standing near him. Then John McDonald, the other staffer, he shows up and stands in the doorway. Andy keeps arguing with him. Then John McDonald, the other staffer, he shows up and stands in the doorway. Andy keeps arguing with him. I looked at Johnny and said, you weren't there and should mind your own fucking business. Instant regret. Johnny started coming at me. I felt Tom grab my arms and pull them behind me. Johnny grabbed a pillow.

I thought he was going to suffocate me. Started to struggle. Gordon might have had a limp, but he was a big strong guy. I could not break free. Johnny took the pillow and put it against my neck with his hand around my throat and pushed me against the wall. These pillows were maybe a quarter inch thick. I could feel his fingers squeezing harder and harder.

I was sitting on the bed and now my neck was straight with the wall, but my back wasn't. Johnny cranked my neck into the wall. I heard a pop and started to black out. Last thing I remember was Johnny in my face on top of me saying, I could fucking kill you right now and no one would care. We can't rely on abusers to report themselves. And the government officials who ran YDC seemed to know that. So they set up a way for the kids to make complaints.

An ombudsman program. In theory, it was a way for kids to raise the alarm outside the normal power structure. After Andy was assaulted, he did just that. He used the system exactly the way it was designed. He asked for an ombudsman form, and in his 17-year-old handwriting, he describes the assault on him saying, quote, There was an argument, and John McDonald grabbed my neck for no reason. I don't think staff should physically touch a resident unless they are losing control." Signed Andy Perkins.

It seems like Andy filling out this form did prompt some investigating. Because the very next page in Andy's resident file is an unlined white sheet of paper with a handwritten note from a supervisor. The supervisor says he's discussed the allegations with Andy and the staff involved. The nurse tells him Andy's neck is swollen. A doctor has put Andy in a neck brace. And then the supervisor apparently looks at Andy for himself, and he writes, quote, he does have finger marks on his neck.

So the system is working so far, right? Andy complained of abuse, a supervisor is looking into it and is corroborating his claim. The supervisor even writes that he notifies the local police department. And then he finishes his report with this line, quote, as of now, it's out of my hands. Which is a kind of funny thing to say if you're really concerned about Andy being physically abused. It's the day after the incident, and you can almost hear this supervisor wiping his hands clean. By the way, Andy remembers this part a little differently, too.

He told me YDC staff didn't notify the police. He did. Yeah, I called 911 as soon as I got to a phone. You called 911 from inside YDC? Yeah. So the state trooper showed up, talked to me a little, joked with them, left. Never heard another thing about it. So law enforcement knew about this incident. A kid in a juvenile jail with finger marks on his neck, who now had to wear a neck brace, who says YDC staff did this to him.

And what happens next? Nothing. There's no record that Thomas Gordon Searles or John McDonald faced any criminal charges for this, and they both went on to work at YDC for years. As a 17-year-old in a neck brace, Andy Perkins had the wherewithal to file a formal complaint. He even says he called the police from inside YDC, the most earnest kid logic cry for help I can imagine in a facility like this. He did exactly what the system asks a kid in this situation to do, report the abuse. It doesn't help.

Meanwhile, on paper, YDC staff can say they followed protocol. They gave Andy the ombudsman form. A supervisor looked into it. Heck, they even got the police involved. They checked the bureaucratic boxes. And then they said it was out of their hands. Andy turned 18 in 1993, and YDC released him, because they had to. He was an adult, legally, and outside the reach of the juvenile justice system. Andy says he had lingering pain from that assault on the bed. Migraines and sharp stabs in his neck and back at random moments.

Sometimes he says his feet would go numb for no apparent reason. I was able to function partially up until my mid-30s. The pains I suffered were manageable with painkillers. It got to a point where I couldn't do physical work. The headaches, back, neck pain was an everyday, all the time occurrence. I'm poor because I can't work. There is no solution when you're poor. I could write forever on my time at YTC and the messed up things that happened in me and

others. These are the things that bother me the most. I'm reminded every day what happened. As soon as I wake up, I'm in pain. In the studio, Andy finishes reading his personal history of YDC. He starts nervously rearranging the papers. Andy didn't come to the studio alone. Sitting next to him the whole time was his ex-girlfriend, Amy Cousins.

Andy and Amy seem to have one of those separated partner relationships that's so healthy it's inspiring. They have a daughter together who's 15. Before I turned the mics on, the three of us were just chatting, and Andy and Amy were talking about their daughter. And it was like someone just lit a fire in the fireplace. It was so wholesome and good. But it wasn't until Andy started reading that I realized he brought Amy with him not just for moral support, but also so that she could hear what really happened to Andy at YDC for the first time. You don't have to sit through it if you don't want to, Amy. I'm sorry. She's never, she's, she knows some of this, but she doesn't know all of it, you know what I mean? So she's finding out about some of it now too.

It's good to lose. Obviously I need to get it out, so that's good. It took Andy about an hour to read everything he wrote about YDC. Most of it is painful. A lot more abuse than we could cover in this episode. And once he's done, I see that Amy's eyes are filled with tears. Pretty much all I knew was that he was abused there

and physically thrown around, that's it. and physically thrown around. That's it. Like, I've known him for what do we say, 20-something years. Over 20. Never knew any of this, like, details, you know. But I guess I just never realized how long it was for. Like, how bad it was. long it was for, like how bad it was.

Why do you think you guys hadn't talked about it in detail before? I just don't think he probably wanted to even bring it up unless he had to and then this came about. It's embarrassing, to be honest. I'm past that. I didn embarrassing, to be honest. Yeah. But I'm past. I'm getting past that. I didn't ask him. No. I never asked him to tell me. What does it feel like now to have it out on the table

for the first time? I'm kind of glad she knows, because she's had to deal with some shit. I'm not pleasant sometimes, I'll tell you that. I've had issues. And maybe she can understand that a little better. Yeah. This definitely makes me think of things a lot differently with things that have happened.

Amy was looking at Andy as she said this. Later, she told me she was thinking of the terrible mood swings Andy used to have. Now, she says, they made a little more sense. Andy Perkins is now 48 years old. He's had this story in his head, in his body, for about 30 years. And until about the last four years, I think it's fair to say not many people would have been interested or would have believed him.

But now they do. Because there's somewhere around 1300 Andes. Andy's story is now just one part of one of the largest youth detention abuse scandals in American history. And that's what this series is about. A place that boys and girls were forced by court order to live in, that was supposed to nurture them, that instead hurt them in some of the worst ways imaginable. A place that for decades was a black box that people are finally seeing into. And what they're finding is absolutely shocking.

How did this happen? How did it finally come to light? I'll show you. Next time on the Youth Development Center, what happens when a staffer does believe a kid and tries to raise the alarm? At that point I was scared. I realized I was working in the wrong place.

A quick word before we go. If you have suffered abuse and need someone to talk to, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. If you're in a mental health crisis, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. You can also find these numbers in the show notes. The Youth Development Center is reported, written, and produced by me, Jason Moon. It's edited by Katie Colanari. Additional editing by Lauren Chuljan, Dan Barak, and Mara Benight. Fact-checking by Danya Suleman.

Our website is ydcpodcast.org. It was made in collaboration with Russell Samora and Alvin Chang at the Peabody award-winning digital publication, The Pudding. NHPR's news director is Dan Barak. Our director of podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie. Original artwork by Julia Louise Pereira and Jan Deem. Photography by Gabby Lozada and Raquel C. Zaldivar. Original music by Me Jason Moon. Special thanks this episode to Chuck Douglas and Amy Cousins. Thanks also to my

colleagues Sarah Plord, Zoe Kay, Olivia Richardson, Casey McDermott, Todd Bookman, and Taylor Quimby. The Youth Development Center is a production of the Document Team at New Hampshire Public Radio. You've been listening to the first episode of the Youth Development Center, a new podcast from NHPR's document team. To hear the rest of this three-part series, just search in your favorite podcast app for the Youth Development Center and hit play on episode two, If You Let a Dog Bite You.