New York State spends $215,000 per year to expose each vulnerable child in its unsafe juvenile prisons to months spent far from home, with inadequate mental health care, and an increased likelihood of reoffending upon their release. The juvenile justice system neither rehabilitates youth nor keeps communities safe.  

Worst of all, a staggering 53 percent of youth in the state’s juvenile justice system are locked up for misdemeanor offenses. A majority of these youth, 86 percent, are Black and Latino. They should not even be on the radar of the prison system. Closing ineffective, under-utilized juvenile prisons and reinvesting in communities can provide the necessary means for revamping this system in crisis. As New York faces a $3.2 billion deficit, we cannot afford to waste another penny on a costly system that harms our social fabric.

Last week’s critical report by the New York Governor’s Task Force on Transforming Juvenile Justice provides a roadmap towards tackling the system’s crisis. The Governor’s Task Force calls for decreased use of incarceration, reinvestment of funds into community-based programs, expansion of community-based alternatives to incarceration, more re-entry services, an increased focus on positive youth development and rehabilitation, establishment of an independent oversight body, reduction of racial disparities – including data collection on all points in the system, and regular progress reports on the status of implementation of their recommendations.

Over the last two months, technology and a growing movement of concerned citizens have exposed shocking incidents that speak to why we work so hard to assure that detention be used as a last resort for youth.

Our work specifically involves reducing the use of detention for youth of color because they are often confined for very minor offenses or administrative infractions. Above all, we believe that detention itself is harmful to youth – a point illustrated in a shocking video released in February.

In the video obtained by a Seattle television station through an official request four months prior, a male King County sheriff's deputy is captured physically assaulting a 15-year-old girl in a Seattle holding cell.

Since the first day of the New Year, we have seen high-profile incidents of police beatings and killings of youth of color made public through the use of video. In the case of Oscar Grant III, the 22-year-old Black father was filmed being shot by a White transit police officer in front of hundreds of Bay Area riders, some who were empowered to “cop watch” with camera phones.

In the Seattle video, the facility camera meant to monitor detainee behavior instead captured Seattle Deputy Paul Schene assaulting a 15-year-old girl, first by kicking her and slamming her head into the wall, throwing her down by her hair face down onto the floor, slugging her twice while she’s restrained and finally yanking her up by her hair and handcuffs. Appalling. All this because she kicked her shoes outside the door of her cell.