PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The population of the city’s Juvenile Justice Services Center (JJSC) reached an all-time high this month, prompting a return to court to force the state to help relieve the overcrowding.
Philadelphia filed a new injunction request in Commonwealth Court on Monday. More than 220 youths are in a facility built for 184, and the population has gone as high as 242.
When resident Tyler got to the JJSC two weeks ago, he was given a blanket and told to sleep on the floor next to about 30 other kids.
He had just been in a car accident and suffered broken ribs, a broken jaw and a possible concussion, so the arrangement was painful and frightening.
“I felt unsafe, like anything could happen to me,” he said.
Related
He’s in a room now, but he said the lack of staff presents multiple problems.
“There’s no activities. We’re supposed to have an hour of gym. We don’t get that. We’re supposed to have school. We don’t have school. We’re supposed to get food at a certain time. We don’t even get food at a certain time,” he said. “There was a time we were knocking on the door for water. We couldn’t get water because the staff didn’t want to let us out because there were only two staff.”
“This is a dangerous situation, and I fear for the safety of my residents and my staff,” said Deputy Commissioner Gary Williams of the city’s Department of Human Services, which runs the center, in an affidavit filed with the injunction request.
Williams described dozens of children sleeping and spending their entire day on mattresses in the admissions office. He said the facility “feels like a pressure cooker.”
Related
James Aye, a youth advocate, said young people are sleeping in intake areas, interview rooms — even the gym. The conditions make it impossible to separate youths from rival groups or co-defendants.
“When those groups of young people are now incarcerated in the same area, they’re all in survival mode. There’s going to be fights,” Aye said.
Indeed, Williams said the severity of homemade weapons and fights has increased, and staff have been injured breaking them up.
The JJSC is hiring, but staff turnover is high, so staff shortages are severe. It means employees are working at least 60 hours a week, sometimes for eight consecutive days. It also means medical care is postponed, because there aren’t enough workers to accompany youths to appointments outside the building.
“Staff look defeated,” Williams said in the filing. “They have lost trust we will fix the overcrowding problem.”
Related
Human Services Commissioner Kim Ali said the only solution is for the state to take the youths who have been ordered to its custody — at least one-third of the youths currently in detention.
“We’re talking about 70 young people that should be in state secure placement,” said Ali.
In the fall when conditions were similar, and Commonwealth Court ordered the state to take 15 youths, the city said it brought temporary relief.
The state has said its facilities are also over capacity, but the city argues that’s because it has an artificially low staff-to-youth ratio — 3 to 1 — and beds are in fact available.
At the JJSC, the ratio is 12 to 1.
Related
Related
