Council Member Althea Stevens, Chair of the New York City Council Committee on Children and Youth,  joined fellow elected officials, advocates, representatives from The Legal Aid Society, and community members earlier this week for a visit to Horizon Juvenile Center to assess conditions and hear directly about the experiences of young people within New York City’s juvenile justice system.

The visit provided elected officials with an opportunity to examine conditions firsthand and engage with the Administration about the persistent overcrowding conditions oung people are subjected to in secure detention.

“Our visit to Horizon Juvenile Center underscores both the urgent need to address the appalling conditions facing young people in custody and to ensure that they are treated with dignity and provided with the support they need,” said Natalie Peeples, Attorney in Charge of Youth Justice, Policy and Training at Legal Aid. “For years, Legal Aid, alongside young people and their families, has called for meaningful action to address overcrowding, improve conditions in the City’s youth detention facilities, and reduce the City’s reliance on secure detention.”

Peeples acknowledged and welcomed a recent announcement by the City outlining reforms to reduce youth detention and improve conditions for young people in custody at both of the City’s secure youth detention facilities, Horizon and Crossroads.

“We appreciate the Administration’s commitment to expanding community-based alternatives to detention, increasing the use of non-secure detention, improving services and programming for young people in custody, and working with court stakeholders and the newly formed task force to safely reduce the number of young people held in secure detention,” she said. “The City must move promptly from commitment to implementation. Young people cannot afford unnecessary delay.”