Vincent Schiraldi: Delco juvenile justice center should stay closed permanently
Vincent Schiraldi, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia School of Social Work and Co-Director of the Columbia Justice Lab published an opinion in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
As someone who has run youth corrections and probation in large jurisdictions, I support trading the old system for a community-centered approach.
Delaware County public defenders Christopher Welsh and Lee Awbrey revealed shocking allegations this month about abusive conditions in Delaware County’s Lima youth detention facility: Staff and youth alleged, for example, that staff smashed a youth’s head into a window so hard that the glass cracked, that when a suicidal girl complained of thirst, staff pushed her head into a toilet bowl to drink, and that another girl covered in feces was denied access to a shower for days. Further allegations include that youth received just two hours of schooling a day, and children were held in mind-numbing solitary confinement, sometimes for weeks, well beyond what statute allows for, and that staff hurled racist and homophobic epithets at the youth...