New York City’s juvenile detention centers have become overrun madhouses where the worst teen inmates rule, thanks to Raise the Age and other state “reforms.”
Per last week’s harrowing Department of Investigations report , Raise the Age — which requires that 16- and 17-year-old perps be housed in juvenile detention centers, not jails, and lets them stay until they’re 21 — combined with bail reforms that condense the worst-of-the-worst teen offenders into youth facilities has “fundamentally altered” the population of the two juvies, Horizon and Crossroads, with an overload of “older” detainees “facing more serious and violent charges.”
The facilities are now bursting; since Raise the Age kicked in, there’s been an “880% increase in residents aged 16-21 at Horizon and a 444% increase in residents aged 16-21 at Crossroads.”
The number of inmates booked on murder charges more than quadrupled.
And the older, larger, more dangerous population is completely bulldozing staff: “Nearly every staff member with whom DOI spoke consistently stated, in substance, that [Administration for Children’s Services] was ill-prepared for the new demographics of the [Raise the Age] population, particularly the residents’ age, physical size, and violent criminal history.”