Colorado corrections officials have changed policies on the purchase of food inside the Youthful Offender System detention center in Pueblo following the hospitalization of one of its residents and an outcry of concern from worried families.
A Department of Corrections spokesperson on Thursday confirmed that all young people housed in the detention center will be able to purchase food from the canteen. Previous policy permitted purchases only by those who had achieved certain privilege levels based on good behavior.
The change comes just days after The Denver Post reported that a 22-year-old housed at the facility was hospitalized last week after going into full renal failure. Doctors told him it was due to malnutrition, his family said. Ten families also told The Post that their children have lost extreme amounts of weight over the past few months due to a lack of sufficient food. Many reported their sons losing 20 to 30 pounds in a matter of weeks as they complained about small portion sizes.
Conditions in the detention center, which houses up to 256 teenage and young adult offenders convicted of violent offenses, have also drawn the attention of state lawmakers. Two legislators on Wednesday visited the facility, meeting with a team of corrections officials as well as individuals serving sentences.
Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat whose district includes the facility, called The Post’s findings “appalling,” adding that he would be joining several colleagues in an inquiry to “demand answers for how these decisions were made, and immediate steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
“Everybody in the justice system — and especially juveniles — deserves adequate nutrition,” Hinrichsen wrote in a statement. “What’s reported is unacceptable, third-world conditions.”
He and Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat, on Wednesday peppered the DOC officials with questions about the caloric guidelines at the facility. Officials, he said, continued to contend that they reduced calorie intake for those housed there to align with federal guidelines. Leadership also noted that the average age of inmates had increased over the past few years.
In response to inquiries from state Sen. Judy Amabile last week, a corrections official acknowledged that YOS reduced caloric intake because the average body mass index of YOS offenders was “higher than was considered healthy within the age group.”
The DOC did not make these same claims when answering questions from The Post.
Hinrichsen said he didn’t see anyone who was visibly overweight during his visit this week — an observation, he said, that was “not normal” given the average population in the United States. He noted that he didn’t see anyone who was visibly malnourished, but he did see people who “looked on the skinnier side.”
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A larger group of legislators plans to tour the facility on Tuesday, Hinrichsen said.
Emmanuel Porter-Taylor, the 22-year-old who suffered renal failure last week, is out of the hospital and is currently being housed at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center, his family said. Doctors told him his diagnosis was malnutrition, stress and high blood pressure, the family said. He lost 42 pounds over six weeks.
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