Limits on juvenile facility visits worry advocates

Bobbie Jo Dunford knows to pick up the phone on Mondays and Wednesdays. That’s when her daughter calls.

She used to get only one 10-minute call per week with her 15-year-old, who is serving time in juvenile detention. But since the Department of Juvenile justice halted in-person visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 52-year-old mother gets two. Twenty minutes isn’t enough for a quality conversation, she said, but enough to know her daughter is OK.

After they hang up each Wednesday, Dunford worries about her daughter’s mental and physical health until the phone rings again on Monday.

“I feel so helpless,” Dunford said.

Visitation at all Department of Juvenile Justice facilities was suspended in mid-March. The agency has slowly begun allowing visitation through modified schedules to maintain social distancing at facilities with no active COVID-19 cases, agency spokeswoman Amanda Slama said.

While acknowledging the need for added precautions during the coronavirus pandemic, experts and advocates are concerned about the mental and physical well-being of those in facilities with positive cases. They urge officials to minimize youth incarceration and offer free and easily accessible telecommunication

“We are widening the disconnection between the kid and the family and their community,” said Michelle Morton, policy counsel of the ACLU of Florida. “When they do come back home, it’s that much harder to reintegrate.”

There are 21 state-operated juvenile detention centers in Florida and almost 600 juveniles in the detention population as of Thursday, Slama said. The amount of youths in detention can vary daily.

Statewide, 72 DJJ staff members and 74 youth have tested positive for COVID-19, according to numbers the agency released Tuesday. Of those, 26 staff were medically cleared to return to work and 17 youth are no longer in medical isolation.

At Miami Girls Academy, the maximum-risk detention center where Dunford’s daughter is housed, one staff member has tested positive. Dunford said her daughter, who is in the middle of an 18-month sentence for conspiracy to commit a capital felony, is under quarantine and unsure what will happen next.

“It’s scary as a parent not knowing what it is that’s going on with your child not in a physical sense but the mental aspects of it,” she said.

The last time Dunford saw her daughter was late February, just after the teen’s birthday. She used to routinely make the weekend three-hour drive between her home in Highlands County and the Miami facility.

She wants to know from more