"Children in Wayne County and Detroit must not be locked up, forgotten and treated as an argument for more resources to incarcerate youth."

Detroit Free Press, March 23, 2023
In an editorial published on March 23, SADO Director Jonathan Sacks highlighted the “unsafe and deplorable” conditions for children living in Wayne County detention facilities. To respond to this "humanitarian crisis," Mr. Sacks offered a series of concrete steps that Wayne County should take immediately, such as identifying the reason for each child's detention and releasing those who do not demonstrate a threat to the community, and explaining the right to appeal to each incarcerated child.

But Mr. Sacks also called for systemic change, including implementation of recent recommendations from the Michigan Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform. As he explained: "The fix for this broken system is not to simply devote more money toward the needless incarceration of non-violent juvenile offenders, it is to rethink the system entirely."

Read the full editorial here, and read the Task Force’s 2022 Report here.