[Vermont] Disability Rights Vermont v. Vermont – U.S. Statement of Interest

On October 22, 2019, the DOJ filed a Statement of Interest in a federal conditions lawsuit, filed on behalf of children with disabilities confined at the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Vermont. The DOJ highlighted language included in the federal First Step Act, 18 U.S.C.  § 5043(b)(1) reiterating that juvenile isolation principles “explicitly prohibits the isolation of children ‘for discipline, punishment, retaliation, or any reason other than as a temporary response to a covered juvenile’s behavior [which] poses serious and immediate risk of physical harm to any individual, including the covered juvenile. . .'”  The DOJ also included the language of the Federal Court presiding over the case, who held that the “[d]efendant’s practice of ‘locking youths in their rooms for days or in some cases weeks on end is unreasonable,’ in violation of the state’s obligation to  ‘balance the needs of the institution against the individual’s right to be free from unnecessary limitations on his or her freedom.'”