Officials are raising concerns over how Colorado Division of Youth Services detention centers are conducting strip searches and finding little contraband. That’s according to a report released Tuesday by the Office of Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado, an independent agency that monitors the child protection system.
In a review of 1,009 strip searches between 2023 and 2025, approximately 10 percent of contraband was found among the searches.
“What our investigation found is that we are lacking a lot of data points, particularly data points that are in policy, and that's a concern to us,” said Stephanie Villafuerte, Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado.
The Division of Youth Services staff was found to have violated its policy 1,006 times. These include lack of documented approvals from youth center administrators; only one staff member conducting the search when two are required to be present; and unclear documentation of the reason for the search and the results. In some instances, multiple violations occurred in a single search.
Agency policy refers to a strip search as a “full search.” It is defined as a search by sight only after removing clothing. Employees are prohibited from physically touching the youth during a full search. All youth go through a full search upon admission to a youth center. Other situations include returning from an unsupervised absence, such as home passes, work, school, and court, and an approved visit within a youth center.
Full searches are also conducted if there is reasonable suspicion of contraband, that is usually tied to drugs or weapons. Overhearing youth discussing concealed drugs or weapons and the smell of marijuana near youth are examples given in the policy.
The Office of Child Protection Ombudsman began reviewing Division of Youth Services' full searches in August 2023 after receiving a complaint from a youth residing at one of the youth centers. The youth said he was being targeted by staff and falsely accused of breaking the rules.
The complaint said that staff required the youth to undergo a full search at least weekly whenever there was talk of contraband. No contraband was found on him.
After reviewing the searches, the Child Protection Ombudsman found multiple violations. These included missing data of administrator approvals of the searches and which staff performed the search.
“We don't want to sound bureaucratic about this, that we want documentation for documentation's sake,” Villafuerte said. “We want documentation in order to show the impact that such searches are having on youth and on staff. And if we can improve, how can we improve the way that we do these?”
The report also found documentation that one staff member conducted a full search when the policy required two staff members.
Multiple review periods showed violations.
A three-month review of all Division of Youth center search logs between August 2023 and October 2023 found 305 policy violations in 441 searches for reasonable suspicion that were completed during that time period. Only nine percent of contraband was found in that three-month period.
The Division of Youth Services’ search log entry was potentially the only documentation that a search occurred prior to revisions in the Full Search portion of the policy in March 2024.
Staff are now required to provide additional documentation of searches that includes information on what led to the search, how it was performed, and the outcome. The updates included clarity regarding what reasonable suspicion entails.
In another review of logs after the implementation of the revised policy, 327 policy violations were found in 284 full searches from June 2024 to August 2024. Contraband was found six percent of the time.
Between January and March of this year, 374 policy violations were found in another 284 full searches, with the contraband identification rate jumping up to 16 percent.
Despite the revisions, the report found that there is still no effective oversight to ensure these searches were completed or documented properly.
“We must balance that with the fact that these youth are vulnerable youth, many of them because of what they've experienced in the past,” Villafuerte said. “There are rules about how we're supposed to do this in the most trauma-informed way. And so that's really what we're struggling with here.”
More changes are recommended
The Office of the Child Protection Ombudsman recommended internal audits and evaluations of all strip searches and not just at the point of admissions and when youth leave the facility.
The Quality Assurance Youth Services, or QUAYS, unit from the Colorado Department of Human Services Administrative Solutions would be responsible for overseeing those evaluations.
Another recommendation includes converting records into an electronic format. Currently, the records reviewed by the Office of the Child Protection Ombudsman are handwritten.
The Division of Youth Services released a statement in response to the report later in the day. It emphasized that the DYS staff is trained to balance personal privacy while also taking a trauma-informed approach and will investigate findings from the report.
“We updated our policies in the past year to keep youth centers safe and free from contraband and maintain trauma-responsive environments that support the dignity of the youth we serve,” the statement reads. “This report raises concerns about adherence to these policies, which we will investigate.”
