Sleeping Rough in a D.C. Juvenile Center

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· Nov. 13: regular population 121, plus nine overnighters in the intake office.

This has gone on for months.

Alan Pemberton, counsel for the plaintiffs who sued the city's juvenile justice system, said in an interview that the youth center's population spike might have resulted from an increase in juvenile arrests and court-ordered secure detentions, and to a recently enacted speedy-trial measure that is meant to resolve cases more quickly.

A July report to the court by special arbiter Grace Lopes on reform efforts at the YSC in Northeast and at the DYRS Oak Hill Youth Center in Laurel offered another explanation. She cited statements by city officials who said that some YSC population increases have been caused by a 2007 decision to house in the YSC, instead of at Oak Hill, youths who are rearrested and ordered into secure detention.

Whatever the causes, conditions at the YSC mock the consent decree, which directs the city "to provide a humane environment . . . and 'maintain' each detained youth to prevent his deterioration during the period of his detention."

Packing juveniles into a room, night after night, hardly counts as an uplifting adolescent experience.

The YSC situation is no secret, except to D.C. taxpayers who are footing the multimillion-dollar bill for these facilities.

But how concerned are city officials?

D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) has oversight responsibility for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. This week, I asked him via e-mail when he last visited the youth center in Northeast.

An e-mail response from his aide, Charles Allen, said Wells "has visited the YSC several times." Allen added that his boss has organized basketball games at the YSC, and he said that Wells has invited me to join him "for their next game."

Cute, eh?