Seattle is on a road map to zero youth detention – so why is it opening a huge new prison?
New multimillion dollar detention facility set to open in county that has committed both ideologically and financially to eliminating youth incarceration
When Armand Karim, 16, was arrested in connection with a robbery and transported to the Youth Services Center’s detention facility in Seattle, he was put in a holding cell for about two hours, given a cold lunch and then taken into a separate room to strip, so law enforcement could search him.
For the next week and a half, Karim lived at the facility in his own small room that included a sink, toilet and a bed. He says he remembers the spiders and webs in the shower and the feeling of consistently being cold, but it was the sitting around all day that really stuck with him.