Injuries from assault doubled at D.C.'s secure detention facility for kids between March and April of this year, a new report shows.
Tuesday, the News4 I-Team reported on the three times this month that D.C. police had been called to calm fights at the Youth Services Center. The Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services called them “group disturbances.”
In all, at least three kids were hospitalized and eight arrested for felony assault according to police records.
On Wednesday, DYRS’s independent oversight agency, the Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight, released new data showing assaults and injuries doubled in April, averaging more than one a day, a disturbing and violent trend. Thirty-two kids reported injuries from assaults in April alone. The agency says there were 34 youth-on-youth assaults last month inside the secure Youth Services Center.
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Both measures are more than twice what they were in March.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recently recommended cutting all funding and closing the independent oversight agency for the facilities. D.C. Council is debating a way to find money to keep it operating.
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