The Legal Aid Society calls on the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) to take immediate action to end unsafe, inhumane, and unconstitutional conditions affecting nearly 100 youth currently held without assigned housing in the City’s secure detention facilities — Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn and Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx.

A letter to ACS details that, at any given time, approximately one-third of the youth in ACS’s detention centers lack an assigned room. Instead, they are forced to sleep in hallways, classrooms, and visiting areas on makeshift plastic “boats,” chairs, or directly on the floor. It also highlights an uptick in assaults and injuries inside ACS facilities, and routine denials of consistent education and programming.

Legal Aid calls on ACS to: 

• expand community-based alternatives to detention and utilize open beds in other ACS facilities;
• limit the duration of displacement for youth without a room; 
• ensure access to education, meals, and programming for all youth; 
• provide secure storage for personal belongings; 
• publicly report data on youth housing status and facility conditions; and
• notify parents, guardians, and attorneys within 48 hours when a youth lacks assigned housing or is denied programming.

“Children in the care and custody of ACS are being deprived of sleep, safety, and dignity,” said Dawne Mitchell, Chief Attorney of the Juvenile Rights Practice at The Legal Aid Society. “They are sleeping on floors, surrounded by noise and chaos, without access to basic hygiene or privacy.”

“These are conditions no child should ever endure — especially not while in the custody of a City agency whose mandate is to protect and care for them,” she continued. “What’s happening in these facilities is not just neglectful — it’s a violation of their fundamental rights and a failure of the very systems meant to safeguard New York’s most vulnerable youth.”