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Former top four at Youth Services to tell their story
ERICA WERNER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Four former top officials will testify today before lawmakers investigating alleged abuses of youths in state custody.
Lee Frazier, Ruth Whitney, Lloyd Warford and Larance Johnson will appear in the third in a series of joint hearings by the Senate Interim Committee on Children and Youth and the House Interim Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs Committee at the state Capitol.
"Up until now a lot of people have sort of directed some accusations at these four, " said Rep. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, chairman of the House committee. "It really is time each of them got to have their say."
Frazier is former director of the state Department of Human Services.
Whitney is former director of the agency's Youth Services Division, and now the department's director of county operations.
Warford is Whitney's former deputy, and now an investigator in the chief counsel's office of the Human Services Department.
Johnson was acting director of the Youth Services Division from March until her resignation in late April.
Madison and the chairman of the Senate committee, Sen. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, said today's all-day session will focus on what the witnesses knew, when they knew it and how the alleged abuses may have been allowed to happen.
"How high up the ladder did it go?" Ross said he wants to know. "That's something we need to find out."
In June, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published a six-part series of articles about problems within the Youth Services Division, including allegations of physical abuse and sexual assault.
Frazier resigned June 24, partly because of the division's problems, and Gov. Mike Huckabee ordered staffers to close a North Little Rock facility where some of the alleged abuse had occurred.
On July 13, the joint House-Senate committee held its first hearing. Lawmakers talked with witnesses from the Arkansas State Police and others who had investigated the facilities where abuse was said to take place.
At the second hearing, on July 27, lawmakers heard from Gary Staggs, former security chief at the North Little Rock Observation and Assessment Center. Staggs said he witnessed incidents of abuse, and encountered stonewalling when he tried to report them.
Also at that hearing, Democrat-Gazette Associate Editor Mary Hargrove testified about her year-long investigation. She said she spoke with boys scared by what staff members had done to them, and that she reported what she learned to the proper authorities as soon as she learned it.
After today's hearing, the joint committee will meet every Monday, except Labor Day, for as long as necessary, Madison and Ross said Sunday.
Madison said that might take three additional Mondays; Ross said he didn't know how much longer the process will last. "I refuse to be rushed into trying to find a quick fix," he said.
Both legislators said the ultimate goal of the hearings is to find a way to prevent abuses like the ones that allegedly occurred from happening again. They will attempt to create legislation to address the issue, they said.
"If there are any inmates that we ought to be able to rehabilitate it ought to be the children," Ross said. "And based on the allegations of abuse and neglect that have gone on at the facilities all we've done is turn problem children into what I'm afraid will end up being a life of crime."
Even as the lawmakers proceed with their investigations, events continue to unfold.
On Aug. 12, Youth Services Division Director Paul Doramus shut down the Observation and Assessment Center in North Little Rock, complying with Huckabee's June 19 order that it close within 60 days.
But Madison and Ross hadn't been informed the center would close that day. They had to wait to read about it in the Democrat-Gazette, and wrote a letter to Doramus saying his action "exacerbated a sense of concern regarding the openness of your agency."
And on Sunday, the Democrat-Gazette reported that an evaluation of the school for juvenile offenders at the Alexander Youth Services Center showed the center fell short of state and federal requirements in 24 areas.

This article was published on Monday, August 24, 1998

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