PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center remains dangerously overcrowded, even though the state is complying with a judge’s order to take more of the residents who have been sentenced to state facilities.
Three weeks ago, Judge Ellen Ceisler ordered the state to take 26 of the juvenile center residents who have been sentenced to a state facility. The state has taken 21 so far, but that has provided little relief for the youths sleeping on floors in the center.
When Ceisler ruled, there were 236 residents in a facility designed for 184. As of Thursday, there were 219 — still 35 over capacity. And, the number of kids at the center who should have been in state facilities has dropped by just three — from 74 to 71.
“We have a problem,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First. “We keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
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She said simply transferring a specific number of juveniles from the detention center to the state doesn’t seem to be working.
“As the state is responding, if the courts continue to send kids — regardless of whether it’s warranted — to secure detention, we’re never going to get ahead of this game,” she added.
Cooper advocates for more alternatives to secure detention — programs that could steer kids in a new direction.
The city says it has recently contracted with Carson Valley Children’s Aid of Montgomery County to provide such services, but it is still in the early stages of planning.
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