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| Court Takeover of D.C. Youth Services Administration Urged |
| By Washington Post |
| Published: 01/26/2004 |
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The District's Youth Services Administration should be taken over by the courts, according to a study by a national expert who said that juveniles at the Oak Hill Youth Center have access to smuggled drugs and homemade weapons and that rooms are infested with cockroaches and ants. In a 15-page report filed in D.C. Superior Court, the expert, Paul DeMuro, urged the court to name a temporary receiver to run Youth Services and implement a series of court orders, dating to 1986, under which the city agreed to improve conditions at Oak Hill. A "countless amount of time, millions of dollars and the potential of thousands of youths' lives and futures have been wasted," DeMuro wrote in the Jan. 12 report. "And after 17 years the youth at Oak Hill are still confined in an unsafe, outmoded and failing institution." DeMuro was hired by the law firm of Covington & Burling, which, along with the D.C. public defender service and the American Civil Liberties Union, represents juveniles in a class-action lawsuit. DeMuro, a consultant based in Montclair, N.J., has been a state juvenile justice official in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and a court monitor for juvenile justice agencies in Florida and Oklahoma. Judge Herbert B. Dixon Jr., who oversees the case, has scheduled a three-day hearing, starting Feb. 23, on whether to name a receiver. City officials said they could not comment on DeMuro's report because of litigation. But in a 24-page filing last week, city lawyers argued against receivership. DeMuro's report says Oak Hill "underreports the level of violence and serious incidents that occur in the living units," citing an alleged failure to report that six youths suffered broken jaws in fights in the first half of 2002. Contraband, including drugs and homemade weapons, is "relatively easy to access," DeMuro wrote. Three people have led Youth Services since July. The latest interim administrator, Marceline D. Alexander, took office last month. DeMuro argued that the "alarming regularity" of management changes has made reform "difficult, if not impossible." |
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