MANCHESTER, NH – Survivors of alleged sexual and physical abuse by state employees at the former Youth Development Center are staging a protest outside the River Road facility in a show of support for children being held there now.
“More than 1,500–2,000 individuals have come forward with allegations of physical and sexual abuse inside this state-run facility, making it one of the largest institutional abuse scandals in the country,” said Michaela Jancsy, 38, of Rochester. “Despite this, the facility remains open—and recent reports indicate that children inside continue to be harmed.”
In March, Cassandra Sanchez, the state’s child advocate, wrote the New Hampshire Executive Council of abuse her office documented at the Sununu Youth Services Center, the former YDC, at 1056 River Road, including a child having their arm broken.
Sanchez in her letter said “video footage confirmed the use of physical restraint without imminent risk of harm to the child or others present, and holding the child down in an illegal prone position for approximately three-and-one-half minutes. Documentation also showed a delay in medical care provided for the broken bone.”
Allegations included children being held in prolonged solitary confinement; excessive use of force; strip searches conducted unnecessarily, despite the availability of a body scanner, and denial of adequate medical care.
“As survivors, we are organizing this protest so that the children inside can see that they are not alone—and so the public can no longer look away,” Jancsy said. “This facility operates as a ‘black box,’ where abuse continues out of public view.”
She said they are calling on the media to “bear witness, amplify the voices of survivors, and hold the State of New Hampshire accountable for what is happening to children in its custody. This protest is not just about the past—it is about what is happening right now.”
Jancsy said if she broke her child’s arm or kept a child in solitary confinement for weeks, social workers from the Division of Children, Youth and families would be on her doorstep and police would be arresting her.
Jancsy is Jane Doe #6 in the civil lawsuit filed against the state by former residents of the Youth Development Center. She alleged she was held in solitary confinement for extended periods of time and repeatedly raped by a counselor while detained in the River Road facility.
She was 13 years old when she was court-ordered to YDC in 2001 after being arrested for assaulting her mother. Jancsy said her mother was an abusive alcoholic. As Jancsy grew older, she said she decided to fight back, resulting in her being charged with assault and ending up at YDC for four years until 2005. During that time, she occasionally was allowed home but always returned to YDC until she was released at age 17.
While at YDC, she would end up in solitary confinement for lengthy periods of time. Sometimes she would have her school books. One time, she said, her school books were taken from her and she was given a King James Bible.
Her brother, she said, also was held at YDC where he, too, was subjected to abuse. He died at the age of 25 from a drug overdose. Many of those who suffered abuse at YDC turned to alcohol and/or drugs after their release to dull the pain of the abuse they endured, according to court records.
The abuse she suffered at YDC, Jancsy said, was far worse than the neglect and abuse she endured at home.
“Ninety-nine percent of us were children who were abused and neglected and we ended up in a place where the abuse continued at a higher level. It was far worse,” she said.
Jancsy settled her lawsuit with the state but she declined to disclose the amount. She said she had to agree to a payout over seven years.
What the state didn’t do, she said, was apologize for what happened to her. And, she said, the state didn’t correct its behavior. Jancsy said what the state did do was “recognized the state has caused you great harm.”
She said she is “somewhat grateful” for the settlement because it meant she didn’t have to go to court with “the state slandering me on the stand.” At the same time, however, she said it “came at a great cost, too.”
Jancsy also is thankful that she reached a settlement before the state changed the process and “completely destroyed it.”
In an Op-Ed, [The state failed us once. It cannot fail YDC survivors again, May 6 Ink Link News], Jancsy wrote the settlement was life-changing — “not because of a dollar amount, but because it gave me back something I thought was gone forever: a voice. For so many years, the state took that from me. The settlement was an acknowledgment that what happened to me was real, that it mattered, and that I deserved to be heard.”
Last summer, she said, the state changed the rules, transforming what she viewed as a fair and impartial process into one “I believe is now subject to political interference. The changes — making the fund administrator a political appointee answerable to the governor, and giving the Attorney General veto power over settlement offers — feel to me like a betrayal of abuse survivors.
Shortly after, Judge Broderick left his role as claims administrator, citing the governor’s abrupt changes:
“What will happen now is the governor, under the statute, will get to appoint an at-will administrator, who she can remove for any reason or no reason at any time, to hear these cases,” Broderick said. “Unlike the job I held, where I had authority to make decisions, the new administrator will only have the authority if the attorney general’s office — the lawyer for the defendant, the state — approves.”
Victims came forward because we were promised independence, Jancsy said. “We gave up our rights to go to court because we believed the process was protected from this kind of intervention. After years of waiting, it’s well past time for the survivors in the settlement fund to have their chance to be heard without influence from politicians,” she said.
The protest is set for 2 p.m. Saturday outside the Sununu Youth Services Center.