Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/coronavirus/page/5/)
It started with a simple question two months ago: Who are the youth in detention who are particularly susceptible to the coronavirus, and what is being done to get them out?
As the coronavirus began spreading in the United States, and grassroots youth activists got wind of the enormous risks as well as the precautions needed to protect people — social distancing, masks, frequent cleansing — they began to take action.
The fast-moving COVID-19 pandemic is shining a light on the vulnerability of youth in our nation’s approximately 2,000 juvenile correctional facilities who face daily threats to their safety and well-being.
As North Carolina began to send 16- and 17-year-olds to its juvenile justice system for the first time, year one was meant to be instructive.
In January, Sharral Dean, a therapist at the Family Counseling Center of Central Georgia, was seeing about 30 young clients a week. At any given time, five to seven of them were what Dean calls “at risk” — more likely to experience violence at home, at higher risk for depression, anxiety, fighting in school and entering the juvenile justice system.
Two months ago, her son, now 20, had spent the weekend on furlough, being a regular kid instead of a youth locked up in one of Louisiana’s juvenile detention centers. While an ankle monitor measured his compliance with orders to stay at home, he’d found joy for three days in simple activities like mowing the yard and eating boiled crawfish. He was able to take a shower and use the restroom without asking permission first. But his time was cut short. Though he had been scheduled to stay a long weekend, through Tuesday, his family was instructed to return him to the Bridge City Center for Youth in Bridge City a day early.
Juvenile justice advocates are expressing tempered enthusiasm over the planned closing of California’s state-run facilities.
As the U.S. enters its fourth month of battling the coronavirus pandemic, states continue to evaluate ways to redirect new juvenile cases and monitor inmates. The juvenile justice system is teeming.
As of April 8, Chicago’s Cook County Jail was the top cluster for the virus that causes COVID-19 in the U.S. As of today, it’s the Marion Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio, according to data compiled by the New York Times.
As the COVID-19 pandemic explodes into a full-blown public health and economic crisis, states around the country are beginning to recognize that now is not the time to assess and collect fees and fines in the criminal legal system. These emergency reforms are win-win: Families keep the money they need for daily survival, and criminal courts free up their time and attention to concentrate on more pressing issues.