The state and the county are facing off in court with dueling lawsuits over who is responsible for finding beds for young people in juvenile detention.
has filed a lawsuit against Atlantic County, saying the county failed to provide a plan for how it will manage overcrowding at its juvenile detention facility.The law says all juveniles held on criminal charges must be housed in a facility specifically for young people and not in a jail or prison with adults.
The commission issued an order last month prohibiting Atlantic County from exceeding the 20-bed capacity limit at its Harborfields youth detention facility in Egg Harbor City. The state ordered the county to provide a plan for managing the issue. County officials argue the state commission ignored its responsibility to manage the statewide housing of juveniles charged with crimes and has instead ordered the counties to figure it out.
Harborfields had 24 people in its facility this year, sparking several overcrowding-related problems, according to court documents filed in the county’s suit. The problems included a “riot” at the facility in late August that resulted in injuries to one juvenile and two Juvenile Justice Commission officers.The overcrowding situation has resulted in young people chained to benches at police stations for hours as Atlantic County officials try to find appropriate housing, according to the county.
“No town can put any juvenile in a holding cell because they’re made for adults,” Atlantic County Assistant County Counsel Arthur J. Murray stated during a November hearing on the county’s case. “So you have juveniles who are being chained to benches for 6, 8, 10, 12 over 24 hours in this county. That must come to an end, judge.”
As of Nov. 14, Atlantic had the second highest number of youths in detention of all 21 counties in the state, according to the commission’s lawsuit. It attributed an increase in its population to a “near five-fold increase in the average length of detention for Atlantic County youth between 2020 and 2023.”
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