SALEM, Ore. — The Marion County District Attorney’s Office has released the results of a grand jury inquiry into conditions at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn. Dozens of plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against current and former Oregon Youth Authority staff in the past two years, alleging they were sexually abused while incarcerated. Most of the complaints center on one former doctor at MacLaren.
The six-month inquiry uncovered a broad range of safety issues including sexual assault and misconduct, gang activity, contraband, facility security and mental health treatment gaps, among others, according to a news release from the DA’s office. The investigation “revealed systemic challenges creating what is best described as ‘Cascading Failures,” according to the report itself.
The report also asserts that MacLaren is “struggling with its role within Oregon’s juvenile justice system” because the facility needs to be too many things at once, some of them contradictory; a youth correctional facility that also houses inmates up to age 25, a closed custody facility that also provides a normative living environment for youth, and a housing center for youth with significant mental health needs despite not being a mental health facility…