Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/coronavirus/page/8/)
New details are emerging about how a failed COVID-19 containment response by city officials sowed chaos among agency staff and left vulnerable detained youth at greater risk of contracting the disease.
As COVID-19 threatens California’s state-run youth detention facilities, the state needs to begin releasing young people from custody, say advocates who have tracked a rise in population in those facilities over the past year.
Nearly 50 New York Police Department officers were called to help put down a violent, bloody riot that broke out at Crossroads Juvenile Center Sunday night when youth in detention managed to break out of their cells, access a supply room, turn mops into weapons and beat several guards, one so badly they needed stitches.
Twin decisions last week in Pennsylvania, one from the governor’s office and the other from the courts, have left incarcerated youth in a state of limbo.
The best time to seek help for anyone who finds themselves contemplating suicide is now, according to mental health professionals.
They won’t give his name. They won’t give his age, either. Or any other identifying information other than that he is a male and was in custody at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison in Louisiana. Sent to a hospital for a drug overdose, he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Many states have not yet acted on advocates’ desire for quick release of all minors incarcerated for nonviolent, mostly misdemeanor offenses who are at risk of infection with COVID-19. There is pushback from opposing sides who feel releasing currently locked-up youth poses a safety risk.
As the pandemic raged, a Louisiana activist flashed back to the last time an outside menace threatened to invade detention facilities and kill those helplessly locked away.
Pay your staff and keep your nonprofit afloat for the next two months by applying this very day for emergency funding provided through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES).
A coalition of juvenile justice advocates in Connecticut are calling on state leadership...