D.C. Teen Who Fled City's New Juvenile Detention Center Is Captured

The District teenager who fled the city's new juvenile detention center in Laurel over the weekend was captured yesterday afternoon in Northeast Washington.

Three employees of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services caught the juvenile inmate after they were tipped to his whereabouts at Seventh and H streets NE. The youth, who got away Saturday by scaling a fence at the New Beginnings Youth Center, was to be moved to a secure facility in the District. It was unclear where the youth would be sent from there.

The escape was an embarrassment for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and his administration, especially because it occurred one day after the $46 million campus opened with a news conference, tour and praise as a facility more suited to rehabilitate young offenders.

Vincent N. Schiraldi, director of the youth services agency, had dubbed New Beginnings the "anti-prison." Fenty (D) called it "one of the best rehabilitative facilities in the country."

Yesterday, Fenty said his administration regretted the escape. But he reiterated his belief that young people need to be in a more therapeutic facility, despite complaints from corrections officers that security at the site is too lax.

New Beginnings replaced the Oak Hill Youth Center, which was notorious for poor living conditions and violence.

"No question. Any mistakes that occurred there shouldn't have happened," Fenty said yesterday. "That's squarely on my management team and myself."

But the mayor also said that New Beginnings remains "a fantastic facility, a fantastic concept."

Fenty said he is sending Allen Lew, executive director of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, to look at the facility. He said he views Lew as "the best of the best" and wanted him to get involved.

Schiraldi said earlier that he planned to put in prickly shrubbery to discourage escapes. He and David Muhammad, chief of committed services, said they had brought in young men to try to scale the fence the day before the opening so they could make improvements.