The Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center (Image: King County)

The King County Council agreed this week on a symbolic gesture affirming its commitment to continue youth detention at 12th Ave’s Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center.

This week’s approval of the motion from Councilmember Reagan Dunn representing the county’s southeast came after “months of deliberation,” the announcement on the vote reads.

The council’s summer debate wasn’t quite as heated as the bulletin implies. “It is the intent of the King County Council to maintain operations of the secure juvenile detention facility at the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center,” the motion states.

Dunn positioned the approval as a necessary step toward more solid legislation.

“With today’s vote, the King County Council made a clear statement that we are committed to keeping our juvenile detention facility open and operating — a major victory for all who are concerned about protecting our communities,” Dunn said in the press release. “Now that the Council has brought clarity to our path forward, we can focus on improving operations at our juvenile justice facility and further investing in alternatives to incarceration.”

CHS reported here earlier this summer on the council vote and broken county commitments to “zero youth detention.”

Earlier this year, County Executive Dow Constantine backed off his commitments made during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests to achieving “zero youth detention” by 2025 in favor of an approach focused on alternatives including establishment of “a network of diverse community care homes” in a quest to change how Seattle moves forward on youth detention and addressing its disproportionate impact on communities of color.

Just south of Capitol Hill, the county’s new $242 million youth jail opened in the winter of 2020 with 16-cell living halls designed to look like dorms but secured for incarceration with electronic locks and state of the art surveillance systems, new classrooms, and an expanded visitation areas where youth offenders can meet with family and lawyers. There is a Merit Hall where detained kids can earn TV time and officials repurposed an “interview room” as a video game room. And there are courtrooms where legal proceedings can be carried out.

Black kids continue to be disproportionately detained in King County, making up about half of the population housed at the facility or on home detention.

Constantine has been pursuing initiatives from a recommendation panel hoped to change the way the county handles youth incarceration while maintaining the youth jail. The most impactful could be an initiative to “create, contract, and provide oversight to a network of diverse community care homes where youth would stay while their court case proceeds if they are unable to go home because of safety concerns.” But Dunn and some on the council are focused on bolstering the youth jail.

This week’s approval comes amid a continued surge in youth crimes including a wave of shootings across the county involving young victims and young perpetrators.

Constantine will be up for reelection next year. He has served as executive since 2009.

The county said earlier this year that more than 60 juveniles were being held in secure or standard detention, on electronic home detention, or in group care.

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