Stevens details overcrowding and unsafe conditions in detention
Stevens says the population has climbed every quarter for more than a year. She describes youth sleeping in spaces not meant for sleeping, receiving inadequate education, and staff stretched to the breaking point after her facility tours.
This is not a temporary surge.
This population has climbed every quarter more.
Every quarter for more than a year.
Young people are sleeping in spaces that were never meant for sleeping, receiving,
inadequate education and being funneled into a detention system that cannot meet their basic everyday needs.
Staff are stretched thin to the breaking point.
Every person in those buildings, young people and staff alike, deserve better than the treatment they are receiving right now.
I have toured these facilities several times to see the conditions for myself, and what I see is unacceptable.
We cannot claim to be a city that believes in young people while holding them in conditions like what I've seen.