Serving ‘dead time’

Summary

Post Reports: Serving ‘Dead Time’
The Washington Post Podcast Episode Released on June 11, 2025

Hosts: Martine Powers and Elahe Izadi
Hosts’ Description: Elahe Izadi introduces the episode, and investigative reporter Nicole Dunka provides in-depth insights.

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1. Introduction to the Juvenile Detention Issue

Elahe Izadi opens the episode by sharing the story of a young man, identified by his initials N.H., who grew up in Washington, D.C., and became entangled in the city’s juvenile justice system. N.H.’s experiences highlight systemic issues within the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYS), the agency responsible for rehabilitating young offenders.

Key Quote:

Elahe Izadi ([00:02]): "Growing up in DC, a young man we're calling N.H. had heard about this detention center in the city. It was a facility meant to detain young people charged with serious crimes."

2. N.H.’s Journey Through the Juvenile System

N.H. recounts his initial arrests in 2023 and 2024 for serious offenses, leading to his commitment to DYS. Contrary to his expectations of rehabilitation, N.H. found himself awaiting placement in programs—a period he describes as “dead time.”

Key Quote:

N.H. ([02:37]): "I'm just sitting on a whole bunch of dead time."

3. Investigative Reporting by Nicole Dunka

Nicole Dunka, an investigative reporter for The Washington Post, along with her team, conducted an extensive investigation into DYS’s handling of juvenile cases. Their findings reveal significant delays and inadequate rehabilitation services for detained youth.

Key Findings:

• Prolonged Detention: From 2018 to 2024, teens like N.H. were waiting up to five times longer than intended for placement in rehabilitation programs, often spending months in detention.
• Overcrowded Facilities: The detention center, initially built for 80 beds in 2004, became overcrowded, leading to increased violence and unsafe conditions.
• Insufficient Services: Detained youth received minimal rehabilitative services, with reports of inadequate therapy sessions and a lack of individualized support.

Key Quote:

Nicole Dunka ([01:54]): "We found that in many cases, some of these teens who had been committed to DYS were supposed to getting into these rehabilitation programs, but they were spending months in this detention center waiting."

4. The Concept of 'Dead Time'

"Dead time" refers to the indefinite period juveniles spend in detention awaiting placement in rehabilitation programs. Unlike the adult system, where time served counts towards sentencing, juveniles do not benefit similarly, leading to extended and uncertain detention periods.

Key Quote:

Nicole Dunka ([04:58]): "Dead time is essentially the time in between when a teen is committed to the care of DYS and when they're transferred to a rehabilitation program."

5. Historical Context and System Reform

D.C.'s juvenile justice system underwent significant reforms in the early 2000s, transitioning from punitive detention to a focus on rehabilitation. The Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYS) was established in 2004 to embody this new approach, aiming to place teens in smaller, more supportive environments rather than large detention facilities.

Key Quote:

Nicole Dunka ([06:40]): "They were supposed to be put into programs, either secure programs or programs where they can live at home that will help rehabilitate them."

6. Current Challenges and Systemic Failures

Despite reforms, the investigation uncovered that:

• Lack of Rehabilitation Beds: A shortage of available spots in rehabilitation programs caused significant bottlenecks.
• Unsafe Detention Conditions: Overcrowding led to increased violence and inadequate supervision, compromising the safety of detained youth.
• Inadequate Support Services: Many juveniles did not receive the intensive therapeutic support they needed, hindering their rehabilitation.

Key Quote:

Nicole Dunka ([12:11]): "We were finding that this detention facility... had become perpetually overcrowded... holding both people who were waiting for their trials, and then also the people who were waiting to go to different rehabilitation programs."

7. Impact on Youth and Families

Families expressed deep concern over the prolonged detention and unsafe conditions. Parents reported traumatic experiences, including their children being involved in violent incidents within the facility.

Key Quote:

Parent of a Detained Teen ([14:14]): "The only security exists, I think, are the physical walls and doors, but the control of that security is almost non-existent. So it's just I don't feel safe anybody's kid... not just my own."

8. Government and Agency Responses

When approached for comments, city officials largely deflected responsibility. Mayor Muriel Bowser publicly lauded DYS, highlighting reductions in violent crime arrests but did not engage directly with the investigative findings.

Key Quote:

Muriel Bowser ([24:45]): "DYS is a fantastic agency... making sure that young people who need to be in secure detention are actually in secure detention."

Nicole Dunka noted that while DYS claimed to reduce the number of youths waiting for transfer, advocates argue that the remaining delays are still excessively long and harmful.

9. The Road Ahead: Reforms and Solutions

The investigation underscores the urgent need for comprehensive reforms within D.C.’s juvenile justice system. Recommendations include:

• Increasing Rehabilitation Capacity: Expanding the number of rehabilitation program slots to reduce waiting times.
• Enhancing Supervision and Safety: Improving detention facility conditions to ensure the safety and well-being of detained youth.
• Implementing Holistic Support Services: Providing individualized and intensive therapeutic services to address the diverse needs of juveniles.

Key Quote:

Nicole Dunka ([23:31]): "If you want crime to stop, you have to actually rehabilitate these teens... otherwise, they could go back to some of these crimes."

10. Conclusion: The Human Impact of Systemic Failures

N.H.’s story encapsulates the broader issues within D.C.’s juvenile justice system—where the promise of rehabilitation is undermined by systemic inefficiencies and resource shortages, leaving youth in prolonged periods of uncertainty and inadequate support. The episode calls for urgent attention to reform these systems to better serve both the youth and the community at large.

Key Quote:

N.H. ([19:52]): "I'm missing... good birthdays being here, like my 18th. That's a big birthday to miss."

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Production Credits:
Produced by Peter Bresnan with assistance from Shawn Carter, edited by Rena Flores and Maggie Penman, and thanks to Lisa Gardner and David Fallis.

Closing Remarks by Elahe Izadi:
Elahe emphasizes the ongoing need for improvement within the juvenile justice system and teases future episodes covering more stories from The Washington Post.

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This detailed summary encapsulates the critical discussions and findings from the "Serving ‘Dead Time’" episode of Post Reports. The episode sheds light on the profound challenges within D.C.’s juvenile justice system, emphasizing the need for systemic reform to ensure effective rehabilitation and safety for all stakeholders involved.

Transcript

[Elahe Izadi]

Growing up in dc, a young man we're calling NH had heard about this detention center in the city. It was a facility meant to detain young people charged with serious crimes.

[NH]

When I was, like, going into high school, that's when I started to hear about it. People at my school would be just coming from here, or, like, people would just get in trouble and just get here.

[Elahe Izadi]

But NH told my colleague Nicole Dunca in he never thought he would end up there.

[NH]

I really didn't hear much about it for real. I wasn't worried about YSC Fluor when I was in school. It wasn't, like, on my mind at the time.

[Nicole Dunka]

Oh, yeah?

[NH]

Yes. I never even thought it was a real place.

[Elahe Izadi]

NH says that in high school, he started hanging out with a group he called the wrong people. In 2023, N.H. was arrested and charged in D.C. for the first time. He was 16, and we should say we're identifying N.H. by his initials to keep his juvenile record confidential. In 2024, N.H. was arrested again for carjacking. After that, A judge committed NH to the custody of DC's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, or DYS. NH was supposed to be placed in a rehabilitation program and. And get services like therapy. So he started waiting.

[Nicole Dunka]

DYS is the Juvenile Justice Agency of the District of Columbia. And basically their mission is to make sure that these teens, these children who might get arrested, are put into programs, either secure programs or programs where they can live at home that will help rehabilitate them.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole is an investigative reporter for the Post, and she and a team of other reporters spent months digging into the state of this agency.

[Nicole Dunka]

We found that in many cases, some of these teens who had been committed to drs were supposed to be getting into these rehabilitation programs, but they were spending months in this detention center waiting. And so for many advocates, many parents, they were saying, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. They're supposed to be going to these rehabilitation programs. They're not supposed to be detained for months at a time, for periods much longer than they had been held in the past.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole and her colleagues found out that in the last few years, people like NH are frequently waiting a long time in detention to access the rehabilitation services they need. N.H. described his time in the detention facility as, quote, dead time.

[NH]

I'm just sitting on a whole bunch of dead time. So I think I won't leave until.

[Nicole Dunka]

Like, November, something like mid November that term. Dead time. Where did you hear that for the first time?

[NH]

What?

[Nicole Dunka]

Dead time.

[NH]

Dead time. I know what dead time was just from me being here. I know.

[Elahe Izadi]

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Elahei izadi. It's Wednesday, June 11th. Today, D.C. s government promised to help rehabilitate young people charged with serious crimes. Mayor Muriel Bowser vowed that her administration's approach would have a focus on restorative justice, love and empowerment. A Post investigation reveals that instead of rehabilitating young people, the agency in charge has often been leaving these young people in, quote, dead time, waiting months and months for help in a facility that's often dangerous and unsafe. Hi, Nicole. Thanks for joining me today.

[Nicole Dunka]

Thanks for having me.

[Elahe Izadi]

Okay. Before we dive deeper into the investigation you and our colleagues did, I'm just so struck by this idea of dead time that we heard NH Referring to what exactly is dead time?

[Nicole Dunka]

Dead time is a term that I first heard from experts who've looked into juvenile detention. It's essentially the time in between when a teen is committed to the care of dys and. And when they're transferred to a rehabilitation program. In the adult system, you're not supposed to be held indefinitely in jail, especially after you're sentenced for a crime. If you're held for a long time, it becomes time served. It counts towards your sentence, but that's not how it works for kids. This is additional time away. And so what we're seeing in the system is that these teens are just waiting there and they have no idea when they're going to get out of the detention facility. NH Told me he felt like he was in this purgatory after getting taken into custody. He was expecting to be able to acknowledge he had done something wrong, serve time, and then go back home. But instead, he had no idea when he could go back. Did you know how long you would be here?

[NH]

No, I didn't know how long I would be here.

[Nicole Dunka]

What did you think? How long did you think you would stay here?

[NH]

I think it was. I thought it was gonna be like last time I come. I will accept the deal. Go back home. I was going to go home and do better. I am still going to go home and do better. I thought I was just going to not be here as long as I think I'm here now.

[Elahe Izadi]

Yeah, that sounds like a kind of perpetual limbo that N.H. found himself in. Nicole, I do want to also just take a step back here because I know that the reporting that you and your colleagues did was a really in depth investigation, and I want to learn a little bit more as to why you all did this. Why did you and your colleagues want to embark on this investigation of DC's juvenile justice system?

[Nicole Dunka]

So in 2023, there was a pretty stark increase in crime after the pandemic, and a lot of D.C. residents were hearing about these carjackings, and some of them were being committed by teens.

[Robert White]

On New at 4, we have reported for months on the crime crisis in dc. One of the main drivers of the surge comes from young people. The D.C. policy center says juveniles in D.C. have committed crimes at a rate double the national average.

[Muriel Bowser]

So Councilmember Robert White.

[Nicole Dunka]

And so we were really interested in how the juvenile justice system was basically caring for these teens and these children who are going through the criminal justice system. We especially wanted to look into it in the context of DC's juvenile justice system because it was a system that had been basically remade in the early 2000s to be more of an agency that focused on rehabilitation rather than just putting teens in prison like settings.

[Elahe Izadi]

So before the DC juvenile justice system was reformed, what was the status quo?

[Nicole Dunka]

So D.C. had been under court monitoring for decades. Actually, in 1985, there was a class action lawsuit that was brought on behalf of juveniles in the system that said that the detention facilities that D.C. had for teens were just unlivable and not a great place for these teens.

[Elahe Izadi]

Like, what were some of the things they were saying were happening in there?

[Nicole Dunka]

They were saying there were really, like prison like facilities, there was vermin. They just weren't taking care of the facilities at all. There was a lot of violence. And so a Judge actually put D.C. under, you know, intensive monitoring with a court monitor for decades. And for years the cities had to report back and say, you know, this is the kind of progress we made on making sure that this is a livable environment for teens who are caught up in the juvenile justice system. In 2004, DYS was actually born. It was a reborn agency that was just geared more towards rehabilitation rather than detaining teens for months at a time. And so they opened up a new detention facility that was smaller and was supposed to be, you know, more habitable for these teens. They started a residential program that was supposed to provide more services, and they were supposed to report their progress on violent incidents and injuries that happened within these facilities. And basically the idea behind the new DYS was to get teens as quickly as possible out of detention and into rehabilitation programs. So these rehabilitation programs are supposed to be settings where they might be getting these intensive services that DRS says they need, they might be getting therapy, they might be getting on medication. So that when they are back home, they're able to kind of function better within society.

[Elahe Izadi]

So basically, it sounds like what they were trying to do was instead of having this approach of, like, let's house all of these children, children, basically teens and children under 18, in, like, a big detention center. Let's have a smaller space that's more of a way station before they get into rehab programs. More focused on trying to rehabilitate them than just detaining them and locking them away.

[Nicole Dunka]

Exactly. I mean, I think the law basically says that, you know, they're supposed to be in the least restricted setting that they could be in. So they're supposed to be in these detention facilities only, you know, until they have some sort of disposition hearing, and then they should be off to the programs that they're supposed to go to.

[Elahe Izadi]

So how did it go with this. Sent with this newly imagined Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services?

[Nicole Dunka]

So what we found is from 2018 to 2024, the teens were really waiting for maybe almost five times longer. You know, they were there for months at a time. Some people were there for six months or even longer while they were waiting for a program to be able to have a bed that would take them.

[Elahe Izadi]

And is that. Is there, like, a law that they have to be out of there by a certain time? Like, how long are they supposed to be that waiting?

[Nicole Dunka]

There's no actual law that says they need to be transferred out of the detention facility at a certain time. But the director of the agency, Sam Abed, has said at multiple city council meetings that their goal should be to be transferred out within 30 days.

[Elahe Izadi]

The concept of placing kids within 30.

[Nicole Dunka]

Days, I use average length of stay as a target for my team.

[Elahe Izadi]

30 days and six months. It's a big gap.

[Nicole Dunka]

Yeah. And there were so many attorneys, there were so many parents who were saying, that doesn't even look like what we're seeing. There are people here who are waiting for months at a time, and every time they try to get answers, they just don't know when they're gonna get out. And that places teens in a really precarious position. They don't know when they're going to get out. They are also thinking about, you know, a period of time that's pretty large for them. When you're 16 or 17, six months is a very long time.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole, I'm also wondering what you all discovered about the detention center that's supposed to be the temporary way stat. Before the teens are supposed to be placed into these programs. What were conditions like?

[Nicole Dunka]

There I mean, what we were hearing from teens is that they were not getting a ton of services. I mean, they did go to school, but there weren't really programs or services that they felt were rehabilitating them. We observed dozens of court hearings, confidential court hearings, and we were able to see that, you know, a public defender, for example, was saying that one of their clients was getting therapy in an open room, even though they were supposed to be getting individualized therapy.

[Elahe Izadi]

Oh, like an open room in the center where there's, like, a bunch of other. A rec center and having, like, a very personal therapy session in the middle.

[Nicole Dunka]

Yeah. And she was saying, you know, he had been attacked in that center. That's, like, not a proper place to have therapy. And so even when this detention facility had mental health counselors or people who could provide therapy, some of these public defenders and these attorneys were saying, well, they're just not getting the right levels. These aren't levels that will be able to rehabilitate some of these teens who have had really difficult lives and need intensive services.

[Elahe Izadi]

What else did you find out about the conditions of this detention center?

[Nicole Dunka]

We were finding that this detention facility, which opened up in 2004 with 80 beds and then added, you know, eight beds over time, had become perpetually overcrowded. You know, there were times in which they needed to open up a new unit to accommodate more of the teens because it was holding both people who were waiting for their trials, and then also the people who were waiting to go to different rehabilitation programs.

[Elahe Izadi]

And what happens when detention centers are overcrowded?

[Nicole Dunka]

I think you see that when there are more people in these detention facilities, there are just more conflicts that arise. There is an oversight agency that was Created in. In 2020 after the agency was basically allowed to leave court monitoring. And this oversight agency was finding that there were just hundreds of more incidents, dangerous incidents that were happening. There were more injuries that were happening. And we were able to find that some parents were finding about their teens being involved in big brawls, basically, where guards within the detention facility weren't able to necessarily get. So they had to call in the Metropolitan Police Department, which is a big deal. Sometimes they would be assaults, and sometimes these teens would be sent to the hospital with various injuries.

[Elahe Izadi]

Were you able to speak to anyone directly impacted by violence in the detention center?

[Nicole Dunka]

Yeah, I was able to talk to families of people who had been in the detention center. I talked to a Maryland man who found out that his son had been involved in a big fight and had to be sent to the hospital. And he was really upset about what he saw in the detention center and he felt like it was an unsafe place for his son and he wasn't happy that really anybody was going to be held there.

[Parent of a detained teen]

The only security exists, I think, are the physical walls and doors, but the control of that security is almost non existent. And so it's just I don't feel saf anybody's kid, not just my own, because, you know, and again, we don't know what's happening behind closed doors.

[Nicole Dunka]

I think that's something that obviously any parent would relate to. Many of these parents know that their kids are going to face consequences for their crimes, but they still want their kids to be in a safe facility, especially if it's a city facility and specifically for young people.

[Elahe Izadi]

After the break, what happens to kids when they leave dys custody and how nh who you heard at the beginning of this episode finally managed to get out of detention. We'll be right back.

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[Elahe Izadi]

So we're talking about this detention center and the ideas for these kids to leave it. And as we've discussed, like, it's taking a long time in some cases for these.

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For.

[Elahe Izadi]

For them to be placed in other programs. What happens when they leave this center?

[Nicole Dunka]

What we found is that there were a dwindling number of programs that were really taking these D.C. teens. Some of them had closed. Others were just not accepting D.C. teens. And that's something that was really frustrating to some social workers who were trying to place these teens in different programs.

[Elahe Izadi]

Why Weren't they accepting D.C. teens anymore?

[Nicole Dunka]

In some cases, D.C. officials were hearing from programs that, you know, they had bad experiences with D.C. teens before or they didn't want to accept people who had certain kinds of violent offenses or who had very extreme kind of criminal charges. And, I mean, what's really striking is that some of those teens are the ones who need the most help. And so what happens is that they are not getting it for longer because some of these programs won't even take them. And then sometimes they are put in programs where we were able to find some documented, you know, allegations of sexual abuse. For example, they would be going to places like Pennsylvania, they would go further from home, which is out, you know, outside of the community, and not be able to have, for example, family visiting or anything like that.

[Elahe Izadi]

Why does it matter if they are further away from their communities? Is that a bad thing?

[Nicole Dunka]

I think some advocates think that some teens should be in the community so they can be closer to any of their support networks. And I think also some advocates just worried about the quality of some of these programs.

[Elahe Izadi]

Well, that brings me back to NH what was his experience like going through this agency?

[Nicole Dunka]

Yeah, I mean, he was very frustrated by the situation. He was talking about, you know, spending his birthday there and feeling like he wasn't doing anything in those programs. He knew that there should be consequences for his actions. You know, he did plead guilty to some crimes, but he also felt like it was really difficult to not know when he would be leaving the detention facility.

[NH]

Do I think I should be here? Yes and no. What do you mean? Yes, you have to do have some type of time for the consequences. But having to be here while knowing when you leaving and being here just. I don't know. Being under somebody else's power is just. It's frustrating, so.

[Nicole Dunka]

And that was really difficult for him. I mean, he said he felt like he was locked up like an animal. Basically.

[NH]

I'm missing. I'm just. If I would have been out outside, I was having trouble with school, but I would have been going to school. I would have been around semi in college applications by now. I missed good birthdays being here, like my 18th. That's a big birthday to miss.

[Elahe Izadi]

How did he get. Did he get out of detention? Like, what happened to him next?

[Nicole Dunka]

So NH Was actually able to go to a program at Abraxas, which is in Pennsylvania. Abraxas is a program where he did have a little bit more freedom. You know, they weren't locked up the way they were in the detention facility. He could, you know, go to different buildings within a campus. It was more like a campus like setting, and he could play basketball with a local high school. So there was just more of a feeling that he was, you know, actually in a program where there was freedom. In that program, you know, he did have access to counselors. They did have more of a focus on rehabilitation itself rather than just, you know, being locked up.

[Elahe Izadi]

And how long did N.H. spend in DYS custody in total?

[Nicole Dunka]

So N.H. was back in custody at DYS in early 2024, and then he was actually committed to DYS custody in July. And through that whole time he was in the detention facility. And then after that, he spent about five months, five extra months in that facility as he waited to be transferred.

[Elahe Izadi]

And how is he doing now?

[Nicole Dunka]

So N.H. is in a group home in D.C. now, and he was looking for a job and recently told me he found one. He's excited to go to college in the fall. He's looking for programs. And so I think he really wants to get his life turned around. But, you know, it was a really difficult experience for him. And he had been away from home for a long time.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole, you know, you spent some time unpacking the problems that you and your colleagues discovered in this agency. And so situation sounds pretty bad. I'm wondering in your reporting if you all could pinpoint some of the underlying reasons how the situation became what it was.

[Nicole Dunka]

So the problem with the residential programs and not having enough beds is far from new. We actually talked to a former director of dys, Hillary Cairns, and she said she and other directors of agencies that were supposed to help at risk children within D.C. had asked the administration, you know, is this something that could happen? Could we create a psychiatric residential treatment facility as kind of a place for last resort for teens who needed really intensive mental health services? We saw that this facility, you know, wasn't Built. This wasn't something that was created. And it did exacerbate, you know, this problem of teens who are waiting for additional beds once they were committed to dyrs.

[Elahe Izadi]

So, yeah, I could see why. If you don't have enough beds at a residential program, it creates this, like, choke point at the detention center. And then you have the overcrowding and all the dead time, and it just, like the program, it just exacerbates over time.

[Nicole Dunka]

Exactly. And I mean, talking to attorneys, you know, they were saying, you know, you could detain these teens, but one attorney was saying, you know, if you want crime to stop, you have to actually rehabilitate these teens, because otherwise eventually, you know, if they don't get rehabilitated, they could go back to some of these crimes.

[Elahe Izadi]

Is this an issue of resources? Like, do they just need more money?

[Nicole Dunka]

I think that there are people who are looking at this as a wholesale approach. They need to just kind of tackle the whole system. I mean, you have different points where the city is put in touch with at risk teens when they are truant from school, when they are first arrested, and put on electronic monitoring when they're awaiting trial. So there are lots of points where the city is in touch with these teens and that they can help turn it around. But we are hearing from families and we're hearing from advocates who are saying this isn't happening in many cases.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole, tell me about what government officials, whether it's DYS itself, the mayor's office, how did they respond to what you and your colleagues discovered in your reporting?

[Nicole Dunka]

So the mayor didn't sit down with us. The deputy mayor of public safety, Lindsay Appiah, did not sit down with us. The director of dyrs, Sam Abed, did not sit down with us, even though we asked them multiple times. But, you know, in public, Mayor Bowser has actually called the DYRS agency fantastic.

[Robert White]

DYRS is a fantastic agency, and we have to focus on making. Making sure they have the people that they need and that young people who need to be in secure detention are actually insecure detention.

[Nicole Dunka]

She has said there's been progress on youth crime. In April, she announced that violent crime arrests were down 26% over the same time last year and that carjacking arrests were down 50%. And so they didn't really engage with some of the these questions that we had. But Lindsay Appiah, the deputy mayor for public safety, said in a statement that the district is working to hold young people accountable for wrongdoing, especially violence, even as we try to Build pathways to rehabilitation and growth. The Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services works consistently to ensure the safety of its young people and of the general public. And then on the DYS side, they were saying that they had actually brought down the number of people who were waiting to be transferred, which was true. They. At some points, they had, you know, as many as 40 people waiting to be transferred. And then in March, that number was down to about 22 people.

[Elahe Izadi]

So at some points, that wasn't. There wasn't this huge, like, backlog, for instance.

[Nicole Dunka]

Yeah, but some of those teens were waiting also for months at a time. So while they did bring down that number, there are a lot of advocates who are saying that some of these teens are still waiting for longer than they should.

[Elahe Izadi]

You know, zooming out, Nicole, your reporting, it kind of makes me think about how there was this movement to take a different approach within the juvenile justice system, that the idea is that we will now have these kids go through programs that if we put some resources in at the front end, we prevent problems for them in the community on the back end. But I guess thinking about the reporting and what you guys have uncovered, how successful has that project been, and is it still possible to embark on that approach?

[Nicole Dunka]

Yeah, I think that advocates and families would say that there's still a way to do this, but they have felt like the agency has really failed them. In one of the hearings that I saw, a judge actually was saying, tyrs is failing a generation of these teens. They're being transferred into their care, and, you know, nothing is really happening to help them. So talking to parents of teens who've been in this detention facility, like the Maryland man who was talking about his son who was involved in some violent incidents, it's clear that they want a lot of changes at this agency.

[Parent of a detained teen]

It needs a whole restructuring because we're doing those kids a disservice. And I hate the hell that my son is locked up. I mean, that's not how he was raised. And it burns me up it. And it's hurtful, but he is there, and I'm his father, and my responsibility to my children is to support him and see him as much as I can. And I'm gonna do that, especially right now. He can't fight for himself. He doesn't even know how to.

[Elahe Izadi]

Yeah. And the reporting also makes me think about what responsibility do city governments like the government of D.C. has? What responsibility does it have to keeping kids safe, rehabilitating them, and also to citizens of a community that may be also victimized by some of these young people.

[Nicole Dunka]

I think that's a really good point about public safety, and that's something that you will hear from people who are really dedicated to this topic. This isn't just about the teens who are in the system, but this is also an issue of public safety, because if these teens and these teen offenders aren't rehabilitated, then there will be crime again in D.C. once they either leave these programs, once they leave these detention facilities, if they're not getting the services they need. And so I think there are a lot of people who are saying it's really within the best interest of everyone in the city that these teens actually get the help they need.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole, thank you so much for joining and explaining and sharing your reporting.

[Nicole Dunka]

Thank you so much.

[Elahe Izadi]

Nicole Dunka is an investigative reporter for the Post. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. Today's episode was produced by Peter Bresnan with help from Shawn Carter, who also mixed the show. It was edited by Rena Flores and Maggie Penman. Thank you to Lisa Gardner and David Fallis. I'm Elahe Izadi. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington Post.

[Muriel Bowser]

There's an efficient way to get caught up on a lot of news. It's called the seven from the Washington Post. It's a newsletter and podcast. Whether you're reading or hit play, you get seven stories you need to know and you can consume it all in just a few minutes. The 7 is out every weekday morning by 7:00am Eastern. I'm Hannah Jewell. I'm one of the writers and I host the show. Find the seven Podcast wherever you're listening. The newsletter link is waiting for you in the show Notes.