Durango has a jail problem and a juvenile detention problem as well as a McMansion problem. Here’s how you fix the the myriad issues in juvenile justice that have plagued the now empty DeNier Youth Services Center.
Fix the water problem. Flooding is not unlikely in juvenile facilities for a lot of reasons. Boredom and lack of supervision is one reason. Staff violence on kids is inexcusable, and means better vetting and supervision of staff is mandatory.
There are currently kids in the Durango jail. There are also sex offenders, drug offenders and people who don’t have their best interests in mind. There is also a lot of case law that makes keeping kids in adult jail questionably legal.
Is it expensive to use DeNier? It may be, especially as it hasn’t been used since 2016. That was a poorly informed and poorly designed experiment that ignored justice for kids, and put people in a bad place for resolving juvenile offenses. It needs to be revisited.
Christa Turnell
Durango
