Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/coronavirus/page/4/)
By May 6, when over 13,000 people tested positive for coronavirus in North Carolina, only one youth held in custody had been tested. About a month later, the state had tested 110 incarcerated youths, according to Kees: 87 at the Stonewall Jackson Youth Development Center, four at the Chatham Development Center after a staff member contracted coronavirus and 19 at Edgecombe Youth Development Center. All tests were negative.
Be it with outrage or eye-rolling, most of us were confounded by the spectacle of college students indulging in spring break rituals — where social distancing is definitely not on the cocktail listing.
As the coronavirus filled up hospitals across Louisiana, three youth in one dormitory at the Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe became feverish.
We remember thinking just a few weeks before COVID-19 that everything was all just too much. There was too much on the schedule, we needed to be in three places at once, and everything and everyone was demanding our undivided attention.
Children in juvenile hall have food security and shelter, unlike many of us. COVID-19 has stolen these basics from countless among us, including families of kids in custody. Worry is constant. Routines are disrupted. Our elders are likely isolated from loved ones.
For more than a month, as the coronavirus pandemic swept through Louisiana, detained juveniles sat in the nearby juvenile jail while Orleans Parish Juvenile Court’s courtrooms — both virtual and real — sat empty.
As protests erupt in cities across the nation following George Floyd’s death in police custody, youth-serving agencies appear to have a similar view of their role. Their job is to support young people, provide safe space for them and, in many cases, bring their voices and experiences into the public realm to solve public problems.
In North Carolina, adult prisoners will build a new confinement facility for juvenile offenders, officials announced. After expanding its juvenile system’s jurisdiction to include 16- and 17-year-olds, the state anticipates a need for more beds for youth who have been adjudicated.
As COVID-19 made shared transportation a potential enabler of disease transmission, it became clear that the introduction of videoconferencing equipment couldn’t have come at a more auspicious time for courthouses and juvenile detention centers across North Carolina.
Teens On Target (TNT) is a leadership development program at Youth ALIVE!, Oakland, Calif.’s anchor agency for violence prevention, intervention and healing. Through TNT, teens from two high schools in the Oakland neighborhoods hardest hit by gun violence teach student-designed violence prevention workshops at middle schools across the city.