Youth prison should be improved, not closed, King County Council agrees

The King County Juvenile Detention Center is to remain open permanently, the county council voted unanimously on Tuesday. The vote was preceded by hours of emotional public statements and protests against the “locking up of children.”

It was the first time the council took an official stance on the future of the youth prison, four years after County Executive Dow Constantine called it a “system based on oppression” and promised to close the facility by 2025. Earlier this year, Constantine said 2028 was a more realistic date to begin the phased closure.

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Council member Reagan Dunn, who introduced the motion, said it was critical that the council make its intentions clear to the county advisory committee, which is tasked with developing a plan to close the juvenile detention center. An early version of the proposal, submitted to the committee in January, called for fully unlocked detention centers scattered throughout the county, rather than one central, locked location.

While the Advisory Committee was divided on whether some young people accused of violent crimes should be placed in a locked institution, the Council disagreed and agreed that some violent offenders need to be locked up despite their young age.

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“We need a secure building for public safety reasons,” said Council Member Girmay Zahilay, a longtime critic of the current juvenile corrections model and its disproportionate impact on black and Latino youth. “It is critical to protect our community and ensure that those who have committed serious crimes are housed in a way that prevents further harm.”

Zahilay was among the council members who added amendments to the motion calling for improvements in juvenile justice systems, including for some youths who are incarcerated for up to a year.

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“We can change what happens within the security perimeter of a building to be more conducive to mental health, rehabilitation and education than I think is currently the case,” Zahilay said.

The $210 million Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center, which includes juvenile detention centers, courtrooms and offices, opened amid years of “No New Juvenile Prisons” protests calling instead for a community-based model of redress and greater investment in the well-being of young people.

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However, over the past two years, youth crime has skyrocketed, and on average 53% more young people are in prison this year than in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.