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Under mounting pressure from advocates and state officials, City Hall has decided to keep its promise to shut down the notorious Spofford Juvenile Center by mid-1998–it just won’t say exactly when the widely reviled jail will close.
In December, City Limits reported that the Department of Juvenile Justice was planning to keep the 289-bed facility in the South Bronx open on a limited basis. That decision came because two new 124-bed juvenile lock–ups, due to open this spring, don’t have enough space to accommodate the flood of young offenders into the system.
But after advocates took their case to City Hall, DJJ backed down. “There has been a lot of public criticism, especially from child advocates,” says Sarina Roff