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State Rep. Kim Wallan (R-Medford) asked the U.S. attorney for Oregon to open an investigation into the Oregon Youth Authority.
As The Oregonian has reported, that agency, which oversees about 900 youths in custody, apparently failed to fully investigate about 3,000 abuse complaints.
That led to the resignation of the agency’s top investigator, Raymond Byrd, and it led Gov. Tina Kotek to fire OYA director Joe O’Leary.
Wallan, a lawyer and the vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee, says those actions are insufficient.
“The severity and extent of these allegations are deeply troubling,” Rep. Wallan said. “Firing one person at the top is not enough; it is imperative that we uncover the truth and ensure that such egregious violations of trust and safety are never repeated.”
Wallan said she would ask acting U.S. Attorney for Oregon William Narus to investigate the OYA.
“Oregonians should be able to trust that our youth correctional facilities are places of rehabilitation, not environments where abuse is well known and ignored,” she said.
The Oregonian today reported additional details of the agency’s dysfunction.
The scandal at the OYA comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Justice has replaced the Democratically appointed U.S. attorneys from the Biden administration around the country and in Oregon.
That doesn’t mean that Narus, who is holding down the job until a permanent U.S. attorney can be appointed and confirmed by the Senate, will necessarily heed Wallan’s call for an investigation, but his office’s involvement is more likely under a Republican president.
Kotek’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering rural Oregon.