Coronavirus Prompts Risky Move Of Young Detainees: Report

NEW YORK CITY — The city quietly moved healthy young people from a Bronx detention center to a Brooklyn facility that recently lost a staff member to the new coronavirus, according to new report.

Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn has become the new holding center for healthy adolescent detainees while those with COVID-19 are being held at Horizon in The Bronx, the New School's Center for New York City Affairs reported Wednesday.

The Administration for Children's Services, which manages the city’s juvenile detention system, moved all but seven Horizon detainees to Crossroads last weekend as part of its "consolidation plan," according to the report.

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Last week a Crossroads caseworker in her 50s lost her life to COVD-19, Darek Robinson, of the Social Services Employees Union Local 371, reportedly said.

Robinson, the union's grievances vice president, told the New School that social workers fear a shortage of protective gear and cleaning supplies mean they're bringing the disease to children they're meant to help.

The union rep reportedly penned an outraged letter to ACS officials urging them to reconsider, writing, "[Horizon] may well turn into a death camp."

Patch reached out to Robinson via email and telephone but did not receive an immediate response.

Read More: Coronavirus In NYC: Latest Happenings And Guidance

Robinson is not the first to raise concerns about the wellbeing of the city's young detainees.

The Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit last month urging the release of 22 juvenile delinquents detained in city facilities.

"[Facilities] experience constant turnover of detained youth and staff, making them breeding grounds for infection and transmission of COVID-19," the suit reads.

Legal Aid's demands echoed recommendations from Columbia University Justice Lab's Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice, which called for releasing detainees with safe homes, those medically vulnerable and those with a release date in 90 days.

ACS did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment, but issued a statement through spokesperson Chanel Caraway.

"We have cleaned and sanitized all surfaces, implemented social distancing strategies, continue to ensure youth have access to medical staff at all times should they feel sick," said Caraway last week. "The safety & health of everyone in our facilities remains our number one priority."

Meanwhile young New Yorkers remain locked away with access to their families, as ACS's COVID-19 safety plan cancelled in-person visits at their facilities, and parents are terrified as to what will happen next.

"It's awful not to see and touch your child at this time," mom Tamara Bowe told the New School. "Every day there's so many deaths. I just want to have him close to home."

“My worst fear is to get that call," added mom Renee Villamil. "‘Your son is sick, he’s on a ventilator, he can’t breathe.’”

Read the full report here.

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