The Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations sided with the Judicial Department after the union representing officers at juvenile residential centers (JRC) claimed the state improperly eliminated a lead juvenile detention officer (JDO) position and distributed responsibility for mentoring new officers to other JDOs, in a decision that has its roots in a 2016 settlement agreement.

AFSCME Local 749 claimed the state made a unilateral change and did not bargain in good faith when the Judicial Department created a new management position and allowed the position of lead JDO to slowly disappear through attrition. The lead JDO would occasionally supervise other JDOs if the shift supervisor was absent, for which they would receive a $20 stipend, and would help train new recruits by acting as a mentor.

Shift supervisors, however, were in the same union as lead JDOs and JDOs and in 2016, the union filed a complaint and entered into an agreement with the state “prohibiting the use of Union members to complete performance evaluations of other Union members,” according to the decision.

The Judicial Department then hired an outside consultant in 2017 to review possible improvements to JRC system. The report showed multiple layers of supervisory bureaucracy within the JRCs and suggested eliminating the shift supervisor position and creating a non-union management position to better oversee and evaluate staff. 

The Judicial Department did not eliminate the shift supervisor position, instead making the position subordinate to the new shift manager position, but they did eliminate the position of lead JDO through attrition. By 2022, there were no lead JDOs at Connecticut’s two JRCs in Hartford and Bridgeport. Ironically, in 2023, the union petitioned and won the right to include the shift managers in their union. 

With lead JDOs gone, mentoring new hires fell to regular JDOs who had voluntarily received additional training to mentor new recruits, and the union claimed those mentors should be compensated as lead JDOs for the extra responsibility. The union also claimed its members “now feel unsafe,” after elimination of the lead JDO position

The labor board, however, disagreed, writing that since the mentor program has existed since 2003, it would not constitute a change of working conditions, and that the JDO job description indicates the officer may occasionally “assist in overseeing other staff,” and therefore falls under “managerial discretion.” 

The labor board also disagreed that mentors should be compensated with the $20 stipend as Lead JDOs did, writing that the stipend was tied to supervisory responsibility, not training, and that there was “no evidence,” that officer safety is jeopardized by not having a lead JDO.

“This financial benefit was tied to supervisory responsibilities rather than the training duties now performed by peer mentors. Furthermore, such supervisory duties are now shared between the shift supervisor and the shift manager, bargaining unit positions of greater responsibility, prestige, and pay than lead JDO,” the labor board wrote in their decision. “[The Union] has provided no evidence that safety has been endangered by the elimination of the lead JDO position at the JRCs, the creation of the shift manager position, or the use of the peer mentor program.”

According to the labor board’s decision, each facility now has “four layers of supervisors,” including a superintendent, two deputy superintendents, two shift managers, and two shift supervisors.

Connecticut only detains only a small percentage of youth who enter the judicial system, detaining only 609 youth out of 4,850 cases in 2024, as lawmakers and Connecticut’s Judicial Branch have focused more on rehabilitation through alternative to incarceration. A renewed focus on youth mental health during and after the COVID-19 pandemic shifted additional resources to help support mental health programs for teens.

Nevertheless, the Judicial Branch has been looking to expand youth detention facilities in recent years; a working group recommendation to redesign and retrofit the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, which was shuttered following investigations into staff abuse. That idea was met with stiff resistance.

Similarly, a plan to open a juvenile detention facility in Tolland was scrapped after the public, town officials and lawmakers representing Tolland found out about it, and criticized the Judicial Department for not consulting with them.

**This article was corrected to reflect that there were 609 youth in pretrial detention in 2024, not 240**

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