Number of Youths Awaiting Trial in D.C. Jail Triples

Minors are housed in a separate wing, but Keela Hailes said the situation was deplorable.

"Basically, there was nothing there for them to do," she said. "They would get into fights. There should be education or something, rather than just warehousing them."

On Friday, Hailes said, her son was transferred to a facility in Wisconsin, where he is to serve out an 18-month sentence. Jermaine is the eldest of her six children, and she said she is hoping that he uses the time to reflect and better himself. He plans to resume taking high school courses there, she said, and to return to the District to graduate.

"I didn't want him to get a slap on the wrist," Hailes said. "I wanted him to do his time in a constructive rehabilitative place. I want him to know the consequences of his actions."

But there is much debate about how best to make that happen.

Last summer, the D.C. Council instituted a crime emergency and imposed an earlier youth curfew. Advocacy groups said the action was little more than a political stunt that had little or no impact on crime.

In 2005, 6 percent of the 51,500 arrests in the city were of juveniles. Last year, 8 percent were of juveniles.

Liz Ryan of the Campaign for Youth Justice said the detention of minors in the D.C. jail is part of a larger problem.

"We're locking up kids in detention that don't need to be there," she said. "We have kids who would be better served in an alternative-to-detention system."

That's why the group is asking city leaders to change the way things work. In a letter to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and the council, the group made several suggestions. Among them are not housing youths and adults together and placing juveniles in prisons closer to home.