King County Considers Abolishing Youth Detention Facility Despite Increase in Juvenile Violent Felonies
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- Crime, Law, and Order
- Street Report
Wednesday’s Law & Justice Committee Meeting
Public comment during today’s King County Council’s Law and Justice Committee meeting was overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing the youth detention facility in Seattle. But surprisingly, Claudia Balducci, Reagan Dunn, Rod Dembowski, and Jorge Baron unanimously agreed there still needs to be a place to incarcerate young violent offenders. So they agreed to send this to the entire nine-member council for a vote next month.
Executive Dow Constantine, progressives, and far-left activists want it shut down by 2028 in the name of juvenile justice reform. Dunn’s office says in 2023, juvenile violent felony filings were up 57% from 2022 and 146% from 2021. As of late February, dozens of juveniles were involved in violent crimes including murder, rape, drive-by shootings, assault, and robbery, often involving a gun.
Recent Example of Juvenile Violence
Where would these juvies go if King County did not have a youth detention facility?