ORLANDO - More than 600 cases of youth abuse or neglect have taken place at Department of Juvenile Justice facilities in the past decade, with nearly two-thirds of the cases happening since 2000, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The 661 confirmed cases at department facilities since 1994 were scattered across the state and range in type from physical to sexual abuse, according to an Orlando Sentinel review of state records.
C. George Denman, acting Juvenile Justice secretary, called his department "a good public agency," but he said it must change.
"Any time we have one confirmed case of child abuse, it bothers us," he said. "The higher the numbers go, the worse it is."
The department has been coping with a series of high-profile incidents in the past year, including the death of 17-year-old Omar Paisley from a burst appendix in a Miami-Dade County detention center last June.
Since then, nearly two dozen agency employees - from the head of the department to guards at the facilities - have taken extended leaves, stepped down or been pushed out.
Six children have died under the department's care since 1998. The Department of Children & Families attributes two to abuse or neglect - the 2001 suicide of Shawn D. Smith, 13, at a Volusia County center, and the 2000 death of 12-year-old Michael Wiltsie, who was crushed by a 320-pound counselor at a facility near Ocala. www.djj.state.fl.us/
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Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com
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