WASHINGTON — A D.C. Superior Court judge said Wednesday she would hold off on a contempt ruling while the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) continues working to bring more shelter beds online.
Last month, Superior Court Judge Andrea Hertzfeld ordered DYRS director Sam Abed into court over at least nine instances in the last year where judges had ordered juvenile offenders into a shelter house while they awaited trial but they wound up placed in a lockdown facility instead due to a lack of space. At the same hearing, attorneys from Georgetown Law’s Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative sought compensation for a 17-year-old girl who was house at the Youth Services Center, the city’s juvenile detention center, for five days even though she was ordered sent to a shelter house.
As juvenile crime has continued to rise in the city, Hertzfeld said Wednesday DYRS has shown “persistent noncompliance” in failing to abide by court orders to provide more bed space for juveniles. Since the last hearing on Nov. 13, Hertzfeld said she had learned of at least 10 additional cases in which DYRS had been in noncompliance.
On Wednesday, Hertzfeld said DYRS had presented the court with a plan to come into compliance. Abed said that plan involved hiring 14 additional direct support staff, bringing online unused bed space at Hope House by Dec. 15 and two additional contracts with outside vendors to staff more beds. Abed said one of those contracts had already been signed and another contract that would add six beds was expected to be signed within a week-and-a-half.
Abed also said DYRS has made new senior-level hires, including a new deputy director, and has completed renovations at the Youth Services Center that will bring 10 new beds online as of Thursday. In total, Abed said, DYRS expects to soon have 98 beds available. As of Wednesday, he said the department had a youth population of 71.
Hertzfeld expressed cautious optimism Wednesday, saying she would hold any order on the multiple outstanding contempt issues in abeyance for the moment. She ordered a further status report on Dec. 18 and another contempt hearing on Dec. 19.
“It sounds to me as though there is some progress being made,” she said.
Representatives from Georgetown Law argued elements of the DYRS plan, particularly the acknowledgement they were not utilizing available space at Hope House, showed they had made conscious decisions not to be in compliance with court orders.
Hertzfeld said last month that judges hearing juvenile cases had seen their case loads increase by nearly 40% in 2023. On Wednesday, she said it was “absolutely imperative” that all three branches of government in the city figure out a solution.