Opinion: Addressing ‘Chaotic’ Conditions at NYC’s Youth Detention Centers

“The young people enduring these conditions are overwhelmingly low-income and from communities of color. Their suffering is not inevitable, and the city has immediate options it could act on today to improve conditions.”

In the richest city in America, with a $116 billion budget, about 100 children are locked in city custody at youth detention centers without beds to sleep in or rooms of their own. They haven’t been convicted of a crime—only accused—and under the law they are presumed innocent. Yet the inhumane conditions they endure make clear they are being treated as if they are beneath the law, while the city shows little appetite to fix it. 

At any given time, a third of young people in the custody of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), New York City’s child welfare agency that operates the youth detention facilities, has no assigned room. They sleep in classrooms, hallways, or visiting areas—spaces unfit for anyone, let alone vulnerable youth. Many are merely provided plastic cots commonly referred to as “boats,” some directly on the floor, and are moved late at night and awakened by 5 a.m., exhausted, disoriented, and still without a place to rest or any sense of safety or stability. 

The environment is filthy and chaotic. Rodents and vermin scurry across the floors. A therapist from Bellevue Juvenile Justice Mental Health Services, which serves youth in these facilities, recently testified in a Bronx trial case that the environment is “very chaotic. It’s a pretty dangerous space. It’s very dirty. It’s unpredictable. It’s loud. There’s absolutely no consistency. There’s a lot going on. There’s—my word would be chaotic at all times. It’s unsafe. There’s nothing normal or comfortable about it.”

The stress of overcrowding has created an uptick in violence. The mayor’s own Management Report acknowledges that “a significant increase in population in a limited space [has] presented additional stressors on the detention environment.” In recent weeks alone, one teen required 70 stitches to his face after being attacked without supervision. Others have been hospitalized with broken bones and stab wounds. Some fights reportedly erupt over the most basic resource of all —a mattress. 

ACS does not always tell families or lawyers when a child is hurt, further deepening their isolation. Because common areas double as sleeping spaces, education and programming—the very things that are supposed to distinguish youth detention from adult facilities—are constantly disrupted. New York law mandates schooling for detained youth, but ACS often fails to deliver even that. 

This is not new. Reports of overcrowding and inhumane conditions date back at least two years. Yet ACS’ response has been to seek state waivers from the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, which has unconditionally approved the requests despite knowing full well the conditions in the facilities. The waivers allow ACS to ignore critical housing regulations instead of fixing the problem. The agency has even floated transferring youth to Rikers Island, a facility mired in a full-fledged humanitarian crisis and soon to be placed under outside receivership, as if that were an acceptable solution. 

Let’s be clear: if these were the children of affluent families, this crisis would have been resolved long ago. The young people enduring these conditions are overwhelmingly low-income and from communities of color. Their suffering is not inevitable, and the city has immediate options it could act on today to improve conditions, including: 

• Immediately reducing the population in these facilities by providing community-based alternatives to detention; 
• limiting the duration of displacement for youth without a room;  
• ensuring access to education and programming for all youth; 

• providing secure storage for personal belongings;  
• publicly reporting data on youth housing status and facility conditions; and  
• notifying parents, guardians, and attorneys within 48 hours when a youth lacks assigned housing or is denied programming. 

New York City cannot continue to warehouse kids like luggage in its detention centers. These are children who deserve safety, education, and a chance to grow into some better than what the system is currently offering them. 

Dawne Mitchell is the chief attorney of the Juvenile Rights Practice at The Legal Aid Society.