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NYC Council to weigh changes to juvenile jails as assaults and overcrowding rise
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 26, 2026 at 12:10 p.m. ET
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Bahar Ostadan/Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 26, 2026 at 12:10 p.m. ET
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Laqasia Tatum has gotten used to feeling helpless since her teenage son entered juvenile detention in March. Around 4 a.m. the morning after Mother’s Day, she got a phone call asking for consent to sedate her son so he could get stitches, she said.
“ I'm asking what's going on,” she said. “I'm just hearing the machines in the hospital going off, and I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.”
Tatum’s son, then 16, was incarcerated at Horizon Juvenile Detention Center in the Bronx at the time. The person on the other end of the line told her that her son had injuries on his hand and back but wouldn’t reveal much else, she said. The mother said she learned later that her son had been attacked by other teens in custody.
“He had staples in his back. He had three different areas where he was cut at,” Tatum said. “Between both hands, he had about 46 stitches.”
Tatum is advocating for sweeping changes to the city’s juvenile detention centers, as the number of incarcerated young people swells beyond capacity and violence is on the rise, according to city data. The City Council is holding a hearing Tuesday to consider several bills aimed at reducing the youth detention population and improving conditions for those who remain.
Councilmember Althea Stevens, chair of the committee on children and youth, said the situation reflects a systemic failure to keep kids out of detention in the first place — and to properly care for those in custody.
“These are young people, and it’s our job to keep them safe,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Administration for Children’s Services, which runs the city’s juvenile detention centers, said in a statement that the agency “is committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for youth and staff in our secure detention centers.”
“We will continue our work to improve the conditions of care, including by renovating our existing facilities, enhancing security measures, onboarding additional staff members, developing updated staff training, and increasing youth educational opportunities, as well as, investing in youth workforce development and training programs,” Marisa Kaufman said.
The hearing comes about a month after Jones Gaston and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced plans to bolster community-based programs and lower the number of young people in secure detention. The plan followed some prodding from state officials, who revoked a special waiver that for years had granted the city permission to exceed the official capacity in its juvenile detention facilities.
That waiver let young people sleep in classrooms and other common spaces, sometimes in shallow plastic tubs with thin mattresses, instead of in bedrooms.
The mayor’s office announced in September that it will increase funding for alternatives to incarceration for 14- to 20-year-olds accused of crimes, expand access to family counseling, launch an intensive community monitoring program for young people who stay home while their court cases are pending, and keep teens with good behavior in less restrictive settings. City officials also plan to coordinate more with the state officials to speed up court cases and transfers to state prisons.
Stevens said she’s grateful for the plan, but she’s still waiting to see deadlines and funding numbers. Without those concrete details, she said, the plan “isn’t going to work.”
“ The conditions haven't changed. They are just as bad as they've always been,” she said. “It's still severely overcrowded.”
There were an average of 385 young people in secure detention in July, according to the latest city data. The two facilities, Horizon and Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn, are only supposed to hold a combined 259 people. City data shows there were 185 youth-on-youth assaults and altercations between April and June, up from 128 during the same period last year, according to the most recent available numbers.
During a recent visit to Horizon, Stevens said many young people were knocking on their doors and pleading for water or to be taken to the bathroom. She said she’s worked with young people for years, and sometimes their actions are “performative.” But she said it’s the job of city officials like her to listen anyway.
“ These are still children,” she said. “That's what I want everybody to continue to think about because, you know, these are children, so we need to move expeditiously.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, the council will discuss several bills aimed at addressing the conditions.
One measure that Stevens is sponsoring would require city officials to create a guide about alternatives to incarceration for young people, which would be shared with judges, prosecutors, attorneys and advocates. Another bill, sponsored by Councilmember Lincoln Restler, would require the Administration for Children’s Services to review the circumstances of every young person in secure detention and recommend good candidates for early release.
Council members will also discuss measures that would mandate annual staff training on sexual exploitation and add funding to implement the state’s Raise the Age law, which regulates how 16- and 17-year-olds are treated in the criminal justice system.
An ACS spokesperson said the agency looks forward to discussing the proposed legislation at the hearing and agrees that only young people who need to be in secure detention should remain there. The spokesperson also said it has added bathrooms at both Crossroads and Horizon, and that young people detained in areas without water fountains regularly receive water.
Tatum said her son spent five days at Harlem Hospital before being transferred to Crossroads.
She said she wants ACS employees to face accountability for the violence her son has endured while in detention. She also wants more resources for her son and the other young people in custody, so they feel motivated to do better when they get out. She said it often feels like they’re not being treated as humans.
“I’m losing hope every single day as a mom,” she said.
This story has been updated with comments from a spokesperson for the city Administration for Children’s Services.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
youth
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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