When Lamar arrived at the Youth Detention Center, the state-run facility in Baltimore for teens charged as adults, there were no available beds in the housing units or even in the medical unit, which typically functions as overflow when the detention center is full. Lamar was directed to the gym, where he estimates he slept for about two weeks.
WYPR isn’t using Lamar’s real name because he’s a minor and because he worries that speaking about his experience at YDC could hurt his ongoing court case.
Though the facility is designed to hold up to 50 boys and up to 10 girls at a time, data from the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, the agency that runs the facility, show YDC was over capacity every day in June and July. Because the facility only houses minors charged as adults, the trend is a sign that the Maryland criminal justice system is treating more teens as adults than in the past.
The exact number of teens sleeping in the gym fluctuates as teens cycle in and out of the detention center. Some days, there are no teens sleeping in the gym. On Friday, July 5, for example, the facility had 56 boys, but seven of them were sleeping in cells in the medical unit, and none were in the gym, according to DPSCS.
Read more (and listen) at WYPR.
