Dawne Mitchell, Chief Attorney of the Juvenile Rights Practice at The Legal Aid Society, has penned a new op-ed for City Limits, shedding light on the deplorable conditions in youth detention facilities.

“In the richest city in America, with a $116 billion budget, about 100 children are locked in City custody at youth detention centers without beds to sleep in or rooms of their own,” Mitchell writes. “They haven’t been convicted of a crime — only accused — and under the law they are presumed innocent. Yet the inhumane conditions they endure make clear they are being treated as if they are beneath the law, while the City shows little appetite to fix it.”

A therapist from Bellevue Juvenile Justice Mental Health Services, which serves youth in these facilities, recently testified that the environment is “very chaotic. It’s a pretty dangerous space. It’s very dirty. It’s unpredictable. It’s loud. There’s absolutely no consistency. There’s a lot going on. There’s — my word would be chaotic at all times. It’s unsafe. There’s nothing normal or comfortable about it.” 

Mitchell lists several concrete steps the City could take to fix the issues, including reducing the population in these facilities by providing community-based alternatives to detention, providing safe storage, and notifying parents, guardians, and attorneys within 48 hours when a youth lacks assigned housing or is denied programming.

Read the full piece here.