More details are coming to light in the violent escape of a teenager from New Beginnings Youth Correctional Facility in Laurel on Sunday night — and, as expected, the incident is causing many to question the overall efficacy of the facility and the capability of the District’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services to manage it.
First, more on the actual crime. The guard who was beaten by two residents of the detention center, a 20-year correctional veteran, has been released from the hospital, but will need plastic surgery, according to his union. The Times, meanwhile, identifies the youth as 17-year-old Travon Curry from Maryland, who is apparently committed to DYRS custody until he turns 21. The paper also spoke with the teenager’s grandmother, who said that he had been depressed and had recently informed his family that he stopped taking medication:
“He has a lot of problems,” Travon’s grandmother said. “They should pay more attention when a child is crying out for help. He was tired of fighting.”
The grandmother added that she didn’t think New Beginnings was the right place for Travon. “He should’ve been in an institution where they can watch him,” she said. “He shouldn’t have been there. I hope he turns himself in. I’m worried someone could harm him.”
D.C. and Maryland authorities, in connection with DYRS, are currently on the lookout for Curry, and have already recovered the vehicle he used during his escape.
As for concerns about the facility’s general security, they’re at a fever pitch. The Times reports that when there is an escape “no alarm sounds when a resident [goes] over the fence” at the facility. Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham, who now oversees DYRS, told the Post that he has “serious doubts whether we have a secure facility at New Beginnings.” In that same report, Tasha Williams, chair of the correctional officers union, told Allison Klein that “you may as well not call it a secure facility…you may as well call it playground detention. Kids think they’re missing something, and they want to go home during summer.”
