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Skewed perspective at Horizon

Posted

To the editor:

You know everyone always talks about the conditions on Rikers Island, but what about the issues at Horizon Correctional Facility in the Bronx? Please do not assume that those walk-throughs that occur with prior knowledge are factual. Those are just dog-and-pony shows to appease for the moment.

For more than a year, the detainees have been violently assaulting Youth Development Specialist staff, resulting in very low YDS attendance rates. Should I also mention that the majority of the population is no longer juvenile, we are dealing with legal adults some of whom fear no consequences. Oh wait, what consequences? It is so bad on occasion that female YDS are not allowed to be in a hall alone without a male YDS.

Then you have school. Classrooms with not enough seating for the students. Beanbags were brought to supplement the seating issue. Can you imagine walking around a small classroom with grown men sprawled out on bean bags? The females in the room are overjoyed at that. Let's also consider how incredibly bright it is to not consider the fact that it is almost impossible to complete school work on beanbags.

Why is it also a secret that the detainees were slicing and dicing each other over the summer, the solution for that is to take off your shoes when you enter the building. Yet had this been happening at Rikers, this would have been all over the news.

All this nonsense is kept secretly in house. Where are the checks and balances for this facility? Mind you there are cameras everywhere. If the powers that be don't want to pop up and see for themselves, watch it on TV.

Bella Bizot

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