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Locked Up, Left Behind
By The Philadelphia Inquirer, | January 14, 2025
Stoneleigh Fellow and Inquirer Journalist Samantha Melamed has published a new piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the state of youth confinement in Philadelphia.
One morning last May, 16-year-old Abdul Anderson stood slouched against a wall at Cove Secure, a juvenile institution on the grounds of central Pennsylvania’s Torrance State Hospital. He was scheduled to be in class, but was stuck in a dayroom in a state of profound boredom.
The next moment, his head smashed into the wall behind him — a staffer headbutting him as the other teens froze, wide-eyed and staring.
The staffer threw Abdul flat on his back onto a table, a meaty forearm across his neck — then hurled him to the floor and pinned him in place.
A Philadelphia juvenile court judge had sentenced Abdul to a secure institution nine months earlier, with the goal of rehabilitating him, after the teen pleaded guilty to a string of car thefts.
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