Too often, the police assume they are breaking the law or the courts decide to put them behind bars, young men and women from the Hunts Point-Longwood area told a panel of officials who work in the criminal justice system. Rising from the audience at Thessalonia Cultural Community Center, one [...]
After fifty-three years as a symbol of heavy-handed punishment and a pariah in the city’s criminal justice system for teens, Bridges Juvenile Justice Center officially closed on March 30. A half-dozen city officials gathered in front of the mechanical gated entrance to the austere detention center on Spofford Avenue in [...]
After decades fighting to get the city to close Bridges Juvenile Justice Center in Hunts Point, advocates and residents have finally gotten their wish. The Spofford Avenue facility closed on March 11, according to a spokeswoman from the state’s Office of Children’s Services headquarters in Albany, although a spokesman for [...]
By Sydney Cespedes sydney29@gmail.com When he was 15, Darryl Briggs ran away from home. Picked up by police, he missed a court date and was sentenced to two months in detention. Now 19, Briggs is the youth program coordinator for the advocacy organization For a Better Bronx, and he is [...]