Connecticut closed its only juvenile prison in April after 39 kids finished their time there. Now, officials from the Department of Children and Families who ran the facility say 11 of those children are in detention centers because they’ve been arrested again.
DCF Commissioner Joette Katz says it’s a good thing she closed the facility even if it’ll be hard for the state to find a private provider to run a locked facility for offenders.
“It’s a tough business and quite frankly not everyone wants to get into a locked facility but it's important to recognize how much we’ve done in a relatively short period of time, and as our grandmothers like to say, if it was so easy everybody would be doing it.”
Katz was speaking to state legislators, advocates and leaders in the judicial branch at a monthly meeting in Hartford.
More than two years ago, Governor Malloy ordered the facility closed by Summer 2018. That’s after a state investigation found that staff had illegally put some children into isolation for days.
By July, juvenile offenders will be transferred out of the child welfare department and into the judicial branch.