PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As overcrowding continues in Philadelphia’s Juvenile Justice Services Center (JJSC), the state is defending its refusal to accept youth who have been ordered into its custody.
Last week, the city asked the Commonwealth Court to order the state to take more of the youth who have been sentenced to state facilities — more than a third of the 211 residents living in the JJSC, which has a capacity of 184.
In its response, the state said it is limited in who it can take because it wants to maintain a low resident-to-staff ratio to deal with the complex needs of young offenders.
Marsha Levick, chief legal officer of the Juvenile Law Center, supports the goal, but she said it ends up hurting those very kids.
“You have kids who are right now sitting in the Youth Study Center in a facility that has a 1 to 12 or 1 to 14 ratio. Something is very wrong with this picture,” she said.
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The Juvenile Law Center and Disability Rights Pennsylvania filed an amicus brief asking that crowding be reduced by letting more kids go home to receive treatment.
There is also a question of how and why residents get transferred to state facilities. The city said 15 residents have been waiting more than three months, but one resident, Tyler, was transferred within three days of his sentence — less than 48 hours after he spoke with KYW Newsradio.
Tyler said he was questioned about the interview and was sent the next day to Loysville — about 130 miles away, northwest of Harrisburg — without notice to his mother or lawyer.
“I said, ‘Wait, I gotta get all my stuff upstairs. All my stuff is in my room,’” Tyler said. “Every number that I ever had — my mom’s number, my aunt’s number, anybody’s number that I need.”
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The city declined to say why Tyler was moved so fast, noting it can’t comment on specific cases.
Rhonda Brownstein, litigation counsel for Disability Rights, noted that kids can sometimes wait for months to transfer to the state, but none of their time in the JJSC counts toward their sentence.
“These are young kids. They’ll never get back this period of their young lives. It’s tragic. It’s completely and utterly wrong,” she said.
“There are kids that are waiting for placement and it’s like, I just got thrown to the front of the line,” Tyler added. “It’s time that’s getting taken away from them and they can’t get any of it back.”
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