Ex-head of state youth prisons alleges retaliation in $4.75M claim

Published 1:30 am Saturday, September 6, 2025

The former head of Washington’s beleaguered juvenile detention system alleges she was fired in retaliation for repeatedly warning of the dangers of overcrowding in the state’s youth prisons.

As assistant secretary of juvenile rehabilitation at Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families, Felice Upton oversaw the state’s two youth detention centers: Green Hill School in Chehalis and Echo Glen Children’s Center in Snoqualmie.

After five years at the agency, Upton was fired in April without explanation. Last week, she filed a claim for $4.75 million in damages alleging she was terminated for being a whistleblower about deteriorating conditions in the facilities. The claim serves as a precursor to a lawsuit.

“DCYF has neglected long-term solutions in favor of short-term actions that are only costing taxpayers more money without addressing the underlying issue,” Upton said in a statement Tuesday.

Tana Senn, the secretary of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, said late Wednesday that Upton’s concerns “were in no part a factor in the personnel and organizational changes I made in executive leadership when I joined as the new head of DCYF.”

In Upton’s tenure, state law changed to send young adults convicted of crimes to youth detention instead of adult prison until age 25. This caused the population in the state’s facilities to balloon.

Harbor Heights

Last year, the crowding crisis reached the point that the Department of Children, Youth and Families transferred 43 men to an adult prison and temporarily stopped taking in new people at Green Hill.

Since Upton’s ouster, the state has opened Harbor Heights, a smaller detention facility on the grounds of the state prison in Aberdeen meant to relieve some of the burden at Green Hill.

Harbor Heights is open to those between the ages of 18 and 25 who are considered medium security.

Harbor Heights will be a six-month rotation with perks for those chosen to move there. Each man will get his own room, with a small TV.

Each room has a window, one of the biggest renovations made to the former adult prison isolation unit. The windows were previously opaque frosted glass.

The features painted aquamarine accents, rooms filled with board games and books, photographs of beach scenes and motivational quotes throughout.

“Welcome to the Harbor; where your future will take you to new Heights,” reads one.

While at Harbor Heights, the young men will be able to develop leadership skills, receive therapy and learn to be a mentor before either returning to Green Hill or being released from custody. They’ll also have expanded opportunities for visitors and access to a three-quarter-acre yard.

Shortage of space

But lawmakers did little this past legislative session to provide systemic reform to address the situation.

Last week, a Washington appeals court ruled conditions at Green Hill, the state’s largest youth prison, violated state law amid reports of detainees being forced to urinate in jugs and go weeks without mental health counseling.

Contributing to the dilemma, according to Upton, was the 2022 closure of a third state detention center, the Naselle Youth Camp in Pacific County. In her claim, Upton said she learned of the plan to shut down Naselle on her first day on the job in 2021.

She said that she immediately expressed concern that Green Hill and Echo Glen couldn’t provide the capacity to make up for Naselle’s closure. Over the next few months, Upton asserts, she tried to show Ross Hunter, then the secretary of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, and Allison Krutsinger, the department’s public affairs director, how harmful the shuttering could be.

Upton said she proposed ways to address her concerns about looming overpopulation but her warnings went “unheeded.”

As early as September 2023, Upton, who had previously been the superintendent at Echo Glen, told agency leaders her fears were becoming reality.

“The lack of capacity was causing unconstitutional treatment of youth and unsafe conditions for staff,” she writes in her claim.

Upton accuses Hunter, who faced calls for his resignation over his handling of the crowding issue, of lying about the deteriorating conditions being unforeseen given her warnings. And she says Hunter suggested she take the fall for criticism the agency was getting.

Hunter now faces a new class-action lawsuit claiming his decision to transfer the young men from Green Hill to adult prison violated their constitutional rights. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Upton’s allegations.

Last October, Upton alerted lawyers at the state attorney general’s office about what she says were Hunter’s “false statements,” but they didn’t respond, according to the tort claim. She also complained to the governor’s office of toxic work conditions and inequitable treatment of women and employees of color, leading to an investigation.

Senn, who replaced Hunter in January, also treated Upton with hostility, according to the claim. Upton said she shared doubts about the plan to open the Harbor Heights detention facility, believing it would violate state law and be especially expensive.

When Senn fired Upton, the agency gave no reasoning for her ouster.

“I was retaliated against and wrongfully terminated for engaging in protected activities, including the reporting (actual and perceived) of improper governmental action,” Upton writes.

Before turning to juvenile detention, Upton worked in the state’s Department of Corrections, which oversees the adult prison system. She now works at the Center for Improving Youth Justice.

Upton is represented by Toby Marshall, of the Seattle-based Terrell Marshall law firm.