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Marvin Joseph

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Monday said the city would expand its response to youth violence by adding beds to detention centers, strengthening enforcement of electronic monitoring and establishing a quality-assurance team to monitor facilities.

“We have to provide more intervention for kids that are in trouble,” Bowser said at a news conference Monday, declaring youth violence a public emergency.

The move comes amid mounting pressure from D.C. Council members, residents and a D.C. Superior Court judge, who have accused the Bowser administration — and specifically its youth services agency — of failing to prepare for an increase in court-involved juveniles. At the same time, the mayor has called for prosecutors and judges to order more young people with certain criminal records to be securely detained.

The District is experiencing an increase in violent crime among people younger than 18. In the first nine months of this year, police recorded 458 arrests of youths for robbery, homicide or assault with a dangerous weapon — a 10 percent increase compared with the same period last year, Bowser said. And between January and October, 97 youths were shot, 15 of them fatally.

With this increase in violent crime committed by juveniles, and emergency legislation passed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/12/dc-public-safety-legislation-explained/" target="_blank">in July</a> that makes it easier for judges to detain certain youths pretrial, the long-embattled Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) is stretched thin.

As of Monday, DYRS’s Youth Services Center, which is meant to house 88 young people in single rooms, was holding 101 youths. New Beginnings, a 60-bed facility, was at capacity, according to government data. Multiple oversight officials, including council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8), have reported mistreatment of juveniles at the Youth Services Center and low morale among the agency’s strapped staff.

The uptick in violence among youths and the state of the District’s juvenile-justice agency have prompted finger-pointing among public officials, especially when the victim or perpetrator is a young person with a criminal record. In the past five weeks, five youths under electronic monitoring have been killed, Bowser said.

Before Bowser’s news conference Monday, Superior Court Judge Andrea L. Hertzfeld held a hearing to determine whether DYRS should be held in contempt for repeatedly failing to find bed space for juveniles involved in criminal cases. She accused the agency of placing them in more secure, jail-like facilities that should be reserved for youths ordered securely held.

During the hearing, Hertzfeld said DYRS was alerted in December that it needed to find additional bed space and staffing and refused to do so. “There has been a historical problem with DYRS not following court orders,” the judge said.

Sam Abed, the recently appointed director of DYRS, told Hertzfeld that the agency has contracted with three new shelter houses where youths who are in the court system with active cases can be placed until their cases are resolved. He said those contracts should add up to 24 new beds.

At the Monday news conference, Bowser and Abed also said the public emergency declaration would allow the Department of General Services to expedite renovations at the Youth Services Center for a new, 10-bed unit, as well as allow for better coordination with the Superior Court division to monitor juveniles at home with electronic monitors — including by sending employees to check on youths with an uncharged GPS device.

“We want a fast response,” Abed said.

Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), chairwoman of the judiciary committee, said in a statement that she hoped Bowser’s emergency declaration would help ensure that youth detention facilities have sufficient resources. She also called for lawmakers to explore ways to “strengthen interventions and supports for District families and young people in crisis.”

One part of the emergency declaration would establish a police and quality-assurance team, “with an emphasis on secure facility operations.”

Eduardo Ferrer, a visiting professor at the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative, said that provision duplicates efforts by the Office of Independent Juvenile Justice Facilities Oversight, a D.C. office established three years ago as part of a settlement of a decades-long lawsuit over detention conditions.

The independent oversight monitor was required to be in place for only three years, and council members said at a hearing last week that the Bowser administration had decided to sunset the office in January, despite the city funding it through the end of the fiscal year next September.

A spokesperson for council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said he planned to introduce emergency legislation requiring the office to stay open.

Bowser at the news conference Monday said she was “assessing” its future.

“It would be prudent to continue that office as it’s currently structured,” said Ferrer, who appeared in the courtroom Monday, representing a 17-year-old girl denied a shelter bed. “When an agency polices itself, it tends not to be a productive way of assuring quality, transparency or efficacy of services.”

<i>Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report.</i>

Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting, finalist (part of a team), 2020

Brown University, B.A.

Emily Davies is a reporter covering crime and criminal justice in Washington, D.C. She started at The Washington Post as an intern in June 2019.

Emily Davies

Pulitzer Prize, 2016

Polk Awards, 2016

National Association of Black Journalists 4-time, NABJ award winner 

Livingston Awards finalist, 2002

Paul Robeson Award, Howard University School of Communications, 2017

Howard University, journalism major

Keith L. Alexander covers crime and courts, specifically D.C. Superior Court cases, for The Washington Post. Alexander was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that investigated fatal police shootings across the nation in 2015. Follow for updates @keithlalexander

Keith L. Alexander

University of Maryland, College Park, BA in journalism

Michael Brice-Saddler covers D.C. government and politics for The Washington Post's Metro desk. He joined The Post in June 2018 as a crime reporting intern after graduating from the University of Maryland. Before moving to local politics, he covered national and breaking news on the general assignment desk. 

Michael Brice-Saddler

Facing contempt threat, D.C. finds more housing for youth detainees 

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