The water from some of the 12th and Alder Youth Services Center drinking fountains is truly nasty. Also, the place smells. Really bad.
The County Council recently decided to place a $210 million levy on the November ballot for public approval. If it passes, the area bounded by 12th, 14th, Remington Ct and Spruce St could see some dramatic changes as new areas open for private development and public space. The plans would replace both the detention and judicial facilities.
The levy would cost the average homeowner $25 per year for the next nine years.
Seattle Channel’s City Inside/Out recently dove into the debate over the center, and several people involved with it made the case for a new facility:
The program gives a look inside the failing facility, with it’s uncontrollable heating system, brown and gray water and lack of spaces for private family consultations. The panel attempts to make the case that even repairing the building’s biggest problems, which could cost as much as $40 million, the center would still fail to meet the needs of the families and youth it is trying to help.
They also stress the need for the facility to have good transit access, one reason for not moving the facility entirely as some people in the neighborhood have suggested.
The prison isn’t “trying to help” the kids it confines any more than an adult prison “tr[ies] to help” the people it confines. This is getting “problem” children out of everyone’s hair and throwing away the key, while profiting off of their incarceration at the same time. This is disgusting, reprehensible, and simply evil.
Forget the new 210 million facility. If you think for one minute that a new building will make a difference-you’re clueless. There is absolutely no need to build a new facility. Just sell the property and move the kids somewhere else-we already have enough juveniles on the bus! Who wants to listen to juvenile deliquent acting parents holler at the juvenile deliquent kids on the way to the juvenile detention center! The #3 and #4 is already crowded and horrendeous enough! Sell the property! How about using the money that the Public Schools fine the parents for their child’s truancy, use the revenue from fines that people pay for DUI, and those traffic cameras. Where does all that money go?! Where does the money go for all the minor drug offenses? Use that money!The city makes a lot more money from the parking meters where does that money go? They charge til 8:00 PM!We need a better economy, more jobs, not more prisons! Stop making everything a crime! Hemp should be legal anyway, and if you want to “go green” use hemp as fuel, textiles, paper, lumber. It would save on energy, makes durable clothing,and lumber instead of chopping down trees and causing deforestation and flooding. Stop trying to sell this to us! We don’t want it.
new jail cells to cage kids won’t meet any needs. the county should spend the money on treatment programs, counseling, mental health and social services, not to mention stopping the school-to-prison pipeline.
The county needs to stop trying to figure out new ways to spend our money. And use the money already received from fines and all the other ways they gouge us, like $150 ticket for going 5 miles over the speed limit! Where does ALL the money go that EVERYBODY has to pay for a driver’s license, tabs, emissions, tolls? Think about it people every car on the road we have to pay a lot of money just to drive, not to mention the high cost of gas! And if Agenda 21 flies, home owners are really screwed! There goes our property rights! The democrats are trying to pass a bill to charge us 10 cents a mile, yep 10 cents a mile for every mile we drive. They’re putting smart meters on new cars to track the miles we drive. That’s the real reason they want us to buy new cars…they’re trying to use global warming to con us out of more money! Even if it were true, why charge us for something the big corporations are responsible for? They’re the ones causing pollution, we recycle, ride bikes, take the bus. The corporations cause the real environmental problems. Like oil spills,factories like dupont, etc…They shipped GM to China-ship out our jobs and its a no brainer there will be more crime!
Just say no to feeding the County. They are worse than rats. All of us for so many different reason can agree that we are not going to pay for this children’s prison.
Please consider for a minute that this may just actually help some o the families and youth and help make the process a little more efficient and make better use of the site. Sorry for interrupting the line, “Something we all agree on.”
Anything is possible, but, I bet funds could be put to better uses other than building a new high tech prison for kids.
Obviously I prefer the county to do without the funds at all, but, certainly not for detention systems. Detention needs to be for the worst of the worst elements in our society.
Helping families via the criminaly justice system isn’t very realistic. Kind of a frightening concept really.
Those courts hear all types of dependency cases and those that involve children. The detention population has decreased due to many other programs and many of the cases heard before the juvenile courts have nothing to do with the detention center. Juvenile cases of all sorts should legally and morally protect their identities and privacy. As it is now there is practically no privacy and the kids and those who work with them are not being served well in a deteriorating facility with no room for waiting or meeting.
Right – so those could be considerred seperately from a detention center. No need to roll to one.
Say that when a 14 year old driving drunk, with a lengthy felony history of burglary, arson and assault already, t-bones your car and cripples the occupants. That wonderful child lived across the street from me. There are juvenile offenders who are unsafe to be in the community. Blame their parents, blame their lack of parents, blame who you want, but there does need to be a facility for them. Juvie offers poetry and creative writing classes from amazingly dedicated volunteers from Hugo House, GED classes, drug and alcohol treatment, counseling. What do you want to do with the kid who lived across the street from me? Just release him?
They’re already spending that money at juvie. GED classes, writing classes, mental health counseling. The go to school instead of jail program called “The Bridge” which floated for a while in the early 90’s resulted in gang member kids telling the teachers “pass me or I’ll spray your house” (with bullets) and, on the last day of school, beating the math teacher in to a coma. Many commenters here vastly underestimate the violent crimes – sometimes pages and pages of them in a juvenile’s history – that you’re dealing with. Anger management, schooling, mental health counseling. All that goes on at Juvie. I agree they need a better building, but please don’t be so naive about the need to rehabilitate. Look how well Tuba Man’s killer is doing after his slap on the wrist. Oh wait, he isn’t doing well. He’s back in jail after more assaults and victimizing more people.
King County Jail is nearly empty and has great bus service. It also has meeting rooms and courtrooms. RJC is so empty it’s shut down half time and it’s beautiful and new compared to KCJ. Score has plenty of room but is far awa. Just move juvie to KCJ or RJC. The psych staff, nursing staff, social workers, school programs, chemical dependency meetings and assessments are all already happening at these facilities, which have plenty of beds.
As the case was made in the video, some juveniles and families have several issues going on at once, one may and will likely include dependency hearings. Although the family members are individuals too and I hope that would be recognized, one of the plans here would be to try to assign cases related to one family to single judge so that the judge could be more easily aware of all the challenges and support services available to the family as a whole. Also judges assigned to juvenile court hear all the different types of cases involving juveniles, and it is no doubt more efficient to have one facility where they work. Now it is difficult to for individuals with very different cases to have the appropriate separation and privacy.
No. We will be voting this thing down. We’re not listenning to the bleeding hearts that think humanity is a county budget.
The costs created by voting it down will likely be far greater in the long run than the costs created by voting for it.
That kind of argument shows how serious the fight is. We must end the growth of government.
I agree with una pequena-pelota! We’re going to keep a close eye on K. Lambert she is behind this, she is from Issaquah. She voted NO on legalizing hemp, and she wanted to censor the GOP caucus by voting not to allow us to video tape the event. Why would she not want it video taped? Is it because she is trying bilk 210 million out of homeowners in the guise of protecting our juvenile deliquent’s privacy…PLEASE How are you protecting them by charging with a crime for hemp. Please don’t help damage their character and put a mark on them for smoking a little hemp. She is all about TOP down govenment. Listening to special corporate interest. A real public servant would be transparent. If she was really about caring for families she wouldn’t had voted no on hemp. Our troops our guarding opium in Afghastan-what’s up with that? Who do you think brings that in? i’d rather my kid have a problem smoking a little pot than being a heroin addict or cocaine addict! i’d rather they had a problem with that than pharmaceutical drugs too! Give me break we can read between the lines! The war on drugs is a fraud and is really a war on the people! We’re not buying it! It isn’t working ok! we’ve had enough!
Kathy Lambert and the other public servants need to remember who they are serving and stop trying to force us to pay higher property taxes! If I were a public servant I would do what the people want me to do and not what corporations pay me to say and do. Most of these politicans are pushing “going green” on us, but don’t apply it to themselves.How about Kathy Lambert and her friends “go green” and recycle by moving to a different location! Or tear down the building and put portables out there for all the public servants to meet in. Stop calling them “officials” its going to their heads. Make the judges and attornies use portable toliets, cause they’re full of shit anyway.
lol. Thank you Rae Rae.
http://www.usaafricans.com/
Support the liberty message! When goverment gets too big it becomes tyranny not liberty. And when it gets too big WE PAY for it! One thing we can all agree on and it is FREEDOM and propety rights! We need the freedom to create alternative fuel “going green.” Hemp was used to fuel cars! Don’t preach at us to go green and not legalize hemp! The constitution was written on hemp paper! Don’t let the establishment shills who give “special interest” who CONTROL both parties a monopoly (democrats and republicans) fool us and divide us anymore! They’re ruining this country by still shipping our jobs out to this day! And by coming up with more and more schemes to tax us and fine us! Worst yet, they manipulate our young men and women to chase phantom terrorists-so special interest can take over natural resources in third world countries. How does this benefit us? It doesn’t were paying higher energy costs! Globalism benefits the 1%.Do we really want to police the world under the guise of humanitarian efforts and kinectic action? Don’t let them trick you into a race war so they can save you by putting you in their prisons and drug you! Yep, drug you! I know a young black man at Monroe and they are force drugging him! We the people of all colors need to stand up for human rights and freedom! They tell us we’re free-but we’ve had so many rights taken from us since 911. They actually have drone surveiling us to spy on us!
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/law-enforcement-corruptio