Classrooms in the city’s juvenile detention centers are being used as cells nearly every day while staff struggle to curb a spike in violent attacks, employees say.
Violence between detainees is so prevalent that employees say they have no choice but to lock the kids in classrooms with a staffer – often into the early morning, where they sometimes sleep on chairs lined in a row. Nine current and former staffers, educators and former detainees who spoke to Gothamist all described the same practice.
The repurposing of classrooms to maintain security, which was confirmed by an Administration of Children’s Services spokesperson, is one of many factors fueling educational failures in juvenile detention, the sources said.
“If there’s a situation, maybe a fight or issue, [classrooms] are used sometimes to separate the residents,” said Antonio Staten, a former Crossroads Juvenile Detention Center employee.
Gothamist obtained a photo of a young detainee at one of the city's detention centers, who was hunched over in a school chair with a sheet over his head.
A photo taken in June, 2023 of a teen, seen through a window, sitting on a chair with a sheet over his head.
A staffer at one of the detention centers described kids being confined to classrooms as a security measure every day “from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m. with at most a sheet and a box of cards if they are lucky enough.”
The staffer, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said he was once assigned to sit in a classroom with a kid who was separated from other detainees to avoid an attack from 3 p.m. to midnight without a meal or bathroom break.
“I began to feel as if I was locked up, as well,” the staffer said.
Roughly 200 New Yorkers between the ages of 12 and 21 are jailed at two juvenile facilities, run by ACS, while they await sentencing: Crossroads in Brownsville, Brooklyn and Horizon Juvenile Detention Center in the South Bronx. In total, there are roughly 20 classrooms at both detention centers, according to sources.
ACS did not respond to questions about when the agency started using classrooms to detain kids. But an educator at Crossroads said the practice began this school year.
“This is something that we’ve never really had before,” the educator said. “Being displaced from your family and your community and then having to sleep in a classroom … it just kills me.”
“You can’t have someone who wants to hurt you or kill you screaming at you all day.”
Stephanie Gendell, a spokesperson for ACS, said classrooms are just one of the spaces in the juvenile detention centers that might be used to separate a detainee from others.
The staffers assigned to sit with kids held in the classrooms are “youth development specialists,” who provide “safe and secure supervision” while also serving as role models and mentors, according to a job listing.
The kids “get absolutely nothing productive” on the days they’re held in classrooms, another Brooklyn staffer said, noting that the detainees themselves do not attend school on those days.
The classrooms are part of a school inside the city’s two juvenile detention centers called Passages Academy, which is operated by the Department of Education. The classrooms provide “instruction according to grade level in all major middle and high school subjects,” according to ACS. But sources say many teens and young adults refuse to attend class each day, and instead receive packets of homework to complete on their own time.
A photo taken in June 2023 of an empty classroom inside a juvenile detention center.
Sources said those who do show up to class are divided by gang affiliation – not grade level.
“Students participating in these programs comprise our most vulnerable population of students, and they deserve every opportunity for compassion and support,” said Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the education department.
A former detainee at the Brownsville detention center who did not wish to be named for privacy reasons recalled being thrown into a classroom to avoid a fight.
“It’s just a waiting game to avoid altercations,” he said. “But it never really made a difference.”
ACS took over Horizon from the Correction Department in 2019 after New York banned the practice of detaining 16- and 17-year-olds in adult jails. Last year, violent attacks with blades and metal shanks resulting in “serious injuries” doubled at the Horizon Juvenile Detention Center in the South Bronx, according to a federal monitor report released in April.
The report said 90 employees at Horizon resigned last year, and that 38% of the staffers on the payroll were out on sick leave — often due to work-related injuries.
The monitor does not oversee the city’s second juvenile detention center in Brownsville, Crossroads.
The daily population at both facilities is the highest it's been in a decade: An average of 103 people are detained each day at Crossroads; an average of 91 people at Horizon, according to Gendell. That’s up 42% and 17%, respectively, from 2013.
Gothamist previously reported on current and former employees who say a network of corrupt staffers smuggle in drugs, cash, cellphones and scalpels.
“Some fights would take place at school or in the hallways,” the former detainee said. “Either the [staff] wouldn’t have a fast enough reaction or maybe they just wanted to see how the fight would go.”
