Trillions for wars, billions for banks and Israel, and we are lucky to get thousands of dollars for anything here.
Enjoy the ride and night's stay, kiddo!!!
"Hub stuck shuttling juvenile suspects; Holding site closed, city police in a bind" by Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff | August 12, 2008
Boston juveniles suspected of committing crimes are being taken to state lockup facilities as far away as Worcester and New Bedford to await their first court appearance, after the Police Department closed down a city detention center July 1.
What about the CARBON FOOTPRINT of such a policy?
Nearly half of the 90 juveniles who were arrested from July 1 to July 29 were taken to holding facilities in other parts of the state, with each leg of the trip requiring two officers and a police cruiser. In some cases, suspects were transported during early-morning hours, when officers are most needed on the streets in what has been a busy summer for police.
"It's not the best use of manpower, but we have a responsibility," said police Superintendent in Chief Robert P. Dunford. "If we make an arrest, we've got to hold them, and that means bringing them to a secure facility."
Boston had run its own juvenile holding facility for years, but mounting expenses prompted the closure of the Mattapan site. Dunford said the $350,000 in yearly expenses to run the facility as specified grew to be too much for the department.
See what I mean?
"It became overall a budgetary issue," Dunford said. "We reverted to what every department does, and that's send them to a state facility that has a bed."
Translation: We fobbed the costs on to SOMEONE ELSE!!!
But with no local facility, Boston now has to travel the farthest to find a lockup. The practice results in juveniles being kept farther away from their homes, and patrolling by the officers is reduced. Meanwhile, the city's new dependence on the state for beds is another burden for a state system that faces its own budgetary problems.
The change reflects the larger struggle to maintain juvenile lockups in accordance with federal guidelines.
You know, I have about HAD IT with the FASCIST FEDS!!!!!!!!!!
These pressures could force Massachusetts to reorganize the centers, known as Alternative Lockup Programs, and the way they are funded, according to proposals by state agencies.
"There's no question the whole system is strained, and underfunded," said Mary Beth Heffernan, undersecretary for criminal justice in the Executive Office of Public Safety. "That's what we're looking at: How do we best run it, and how do we best fund it?"
Under the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, a juvenile held for more than six hours before his first court appearance must be taken to a facility separate from any adult institution or police lockup. Never can these suspects be held within hearing or eye contact of adults. And they cannot be mixed with others already serving sentences or being held pending the outcome of their cases.
The state could lose out on federal grants it receives under the act if any police department or agency in the state fails to meet the guidelines.
Sig Heil!
Last year, Massachusetts received $1.9 million in federal grants under the act. Of that, $1.4 million - or 74 percent - was used to fund regional lockups, rather than for the prevention and education programs for which the grants were intended.
Un-fucking-real!!!!!!
That tally does not include the expense of the former facility in Boston, which the city funded on its own. Heffernan said her office has proposed having the state fund the regional lockups with its own money, so that the federal grants could be spent on prevention programs.
"We want to use the dwindling federal funds for other programs," Heffernan said.
Yeah, I wonder where all that $$$ is going (Iraq)!!!
This proposal, first made in a 2006 report, emphasized the increased costs of running the facilities at a time when federal funding under the juvenile justice act has been dwindling, from $6.9 million in 2001. In the meantime, the cost of running the alternative lockups has increased from $1.1 million to $1.4 million.
Yup, so the damn feds mandate the program and then FAIL to FUND IT!!!
More then 3,500 juveniles in Massachusetts are taken to Alternative Lockup Programs each year, according to state figures. The federal grants fund lockups operated by local sheriff's departments or the Department of Youth Services in New Bedford, Lawrence, Worcester, Springfield, and Westfield.
Dunford said that Boston police are in discussions with the state to find better ways to house Boston juveniles who are arrested and awaiting court hearings. But they were unable to find an alternative by July 1. And, by then, the city had already closed its facility on Harvard Street, forcing police to find new ways to house juveniles awaiting court.
He hopes police and the state will find an alternative, but in the meantime officers will be dispatched to whatever facility has a bed available."And YOU will be PAYING FOR IT, Massachusetts taxpayers!!!!
