Perhaps New Beginnings, the name of D.C.’s reform school, is not just Orwellian but also a cruel joke, especially for the men and women hired to guard the city’s worst juvenile offenders. We might start calling the posh digs “Never Ending,” for the violence that some of the kids bring to the campus and take with them when they depart.
“We’re the ones walking around with restraints,” corrections union leader Tasha Williams told me. The officers cannot handcuff or restrain juveniles who misbehave. They are not armed and have no way to discipline kids. “You have to let them know this is a corrections facility — not a camp.”
No doubt there will be a thorough investigation of the riot that engulfed New Beginnings in suburban Maryland Sunday night. Doubtless the results will be secret, because virtually everything that transpires in and around juveniles in D.C. is protected by privacy rules.
Here’s what my reporting shows:
A corrections officer was ushering kids from dinner to their rooms on Father’s Day evening. Some of the teenagers started protesting. It was a nice night. They didn’t want to be shut in their rooms, so they refused to move.
“Start moving,” the officer said, according to my sources.
“No way,” said one of the kids under supervision of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. I use “kid” loosely — this man was 20.
The officer radioed for assistance. A supervisor showed up and ordered the kids to proceed to their housing unit. The 20-year-old clocked him, breaking his jaw and sending him to the ground barely conscious. The inmate (may I call him that?) then grabbed the supervisor’s electronic key, and doors were opened to free kids throughout the facility.
New Beginnings became a New Party: kids on the roof, kids ripping sprinklers from ceilings and flooding rooms, kids rampaging through the halls.
The cops descended in force. Police Chief Cathy Lanier showed up, as did units from Anne Arundel County, Maryland State Troopers, U.S. Park Police. We’ll let the authorities figure out who had jurisdiction, but it’s hard to see why Lanier has any police powers in Maryland. My sources say no one dealt with the 20-year-old who started the ruckus.
All of this chagrins Tasha Williams, who speaks for the corrections crew.
“You have to let the kids know you aren’t afraid to take back the facility,” she says. “Under DYRS rules, the kids have more rights than we do.”
Williams, 36, was born and raised in D.C. She remembers the day one of her teachers at Langdon Elementary hit her, and she hit her back.
“My mother was waiting for me after school,” she says. “She beat me all the way home. Then my grandmother beat me. Then my neighbor beat me.
I had people who corrected my behavior,” she says. “I thank them every day.”
The city and its youth agency aren’t doing the bad kids any favors by letting them be bad when they are supposedly locked up.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected]
