Artist rendition of the upgraded facility
King County has opted to cancel a planned Saturday “open house of conceptual designs” of the controversial Children and Family Justice Center to be built at 12th and Alder and instead will hold a “virtual open house” with information and a survey about the project, according to an announcement sent to CHS.
The detention and justice center has been the target of ongoing opposition by protesters and community groups who say $200 million shouldn’t be spent on a youth detention system that disproportionately detains African Americans.
In October, the Seattle City Council voted 8-1 in favor of a land use bill that gave King County the ability to replace its crumbling facilities.
In order to reach more residents of King County, we are replacing the open house at the Youth Services Center on Sat Jan. 24, with a virtual open house of conceptual designs of the Children and Family Justice Center. For your convenience, the virtual open house and survey will be available online from Jan. 24 through Feb. 8, 2015.
The County will post the virtual open house on the Children and Family Justice Center website late Fri., Jan. 23, and email it to project stakeholders. www.kingcounty.gov/childrenandfamilyjustice.
Please use the survey at the end of the narrated video to share your priorities as we move to design refinement in 2015 and construction in 2016 of the badly needed new courthouse and detention center at 12th Ave. and East Alder Street.
The County will schedule an in-person event after the design-build contract is signed and the design refinement process begins. Details about a public engagement schedule will be emailed to stakeholders, distributed on the County’s social media platforms and posted on the project website when they are available.
The Children and Family Justice Center will better support the policies and programs that have helped King County achieve one of the lowest juvenile detention rates in the nation. Additionally, King County is leading an assessment and developing an action plan in 2015 to further our work to minimize youth involvement and understand and better combat the causes of racial disparity in the criminal justice system, many of which occur long before youth arrive at the detention center door. For more information, visit www.kingcounty.gov/childrenandfamilyjustice.
I do agree that we shouldn’t be dumping all this money into incarceration, and should rather be spending it on outreach, education and prevention.
HOWEVER, that facility is in shambles and should be repaired or replaced.
And in a city like Seattle, with limited space, in a high density neighborhood that 3+ square block facility should be rearranged. Giant parking lot should be removed and parking put under the facility or in a garage with a smaller footprint. You could probably reduce the footprint to 1 square block, offset the costs of construction by selling off and developing another square block and the remainder?? We need more park space on 1st Hill!! Carve a park space out of the redeveloped lot!
I don’t understand why there is such vehement opposition to this plan. The facility is clearly outdated and in need of replacement. Yes, juveniles are incarcerated there, but most of them deserve to be there. And, presumably, the new building will have nicer and more spacious living quarters for them while they spend their time there.
In addition, it sounds like King County is making a sincere effort as far as outreach and education to try and keep kids out of there in the first place.
“Controversial”? To whom? A handful of fringers who don’t feel that “Youth” should be “Caged”.
This is about as controversial as global warming, and its the same mentality that opposes it (the far extremes of both sides eventually meet, after all). Stop playing into the hands of a few weirdos.
[…] voted 8-1 in favor of a land use bill to allow construction on the site. Last month, the county opted to cancel a planned “open house of conceptual designs” of the controversial facility and instead held a […]