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Bill To Close CT’s Juvenile Prison Heads To The Floor

A boy is led into a padded cell at the Connecticut Juvenile Training Facility in Middletown. This screenshot comes from surveillance video released this week by the Department of Children and Families.
Connecticut Department of Children and Families
A boy is led into a padded cell at the Connecticut Juvenile Training Facility in Middletown. This screenshot comes from surveillance video released this week by the Department of Children and Families.
A boy is led into a padded cell at the Connecticut Juvenile Training Facility in Middletown. This screenshot comes from surveillance video released this week by the Department of Children and Families.
Credit Connecticut Department of Children and Families
/
Connecticut Department of Children and Families
A boy is led into a padded cell at the Connecticut Juvenile Training Facility in Middletown. This screenshot comes from surveillance video released this week by the Department of Children and Families.

A bill that would close Connecticut’s juvenile detention facility in Middletown by 2018 passed the General Assembly Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. The Connecticut Juvenile Training Facility was under investigation last year for illegally putting children into restraints and seclusion.

State Representative Toni Walker (D-New Haven) is a member of the committee. Walker says closing the facility would let the state put money towards programs that help keep kids out of prison.

“We’re not talking about putting new funding in. We are talking about repurposing. And that’s the whole reason why it’s so important that we have the data to evaluate, are the programs that we are funding currently are efficient and serve the purposes that we want them to serve.”

Walker says about 80 percent of the youth who went through the juvenile detention facility have been in the Department of Corrections. She says data like that show the state is pouring money down a well.

Walker says she expects the bill to pass the House and Senate this session.

Copyright 2016 WSHU

Cassandra Basler oversees Connecticut Public’s flagship daily news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and coordinates breaking news coverage on the air, online and in your morning email inbox. Her reporting has aired nationally on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Here & Now.

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