Juvenile Detention Center of Houston, Texas
Day room in the over-occupied Center where cots have been set up to accomodate the population.
The Juvenile Detention Center in Houston, Texas has 210 beds, with a normal occupancy between 160 to 192 children. At the time of visit last month, they were temporarily over capacity and had to resort to MOUs– multiple occupancy units. This translates to kids sleeping in the day room (see the first image). According to staff, the center was backed up because the kids had STAR testing and couldn’t be moved to other facilities. Staff also inform that the drug of choice used to be crack, but has now shifted towards prescription drugs such as Xanax. Law enforcement doesn’t ask kids about citizenship. The center only gets the Mexican consulate involved when there are problems of undocumented children without parents.
Richard Ross
Richard Ross is the Executive Director of www.juvenile-in-justice.com and Juvenile-in-Justice. He is the principal photographer for the Juvenile-in-Justice project and travels frequently throughout the country to photograph and interview incarcerated children. Ross lectures frequently and has spoken at the Vera Institute of Justice, the 7th Annual Models for Change Conference, JDAI conferences, The Justice for Youth Summit, and many more. He is the author of Juvenile-in-Justice the book which received the American Library Association's 2013 Alex Award. He has been the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Fulbright, and the Center for Cultural Innovation. Ross has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 1977.
Follow Me:
![[Featured Organization] Prison Arts Coalition](http://www.juvenile-in-justice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/prison-arts-alabama_full_600-1.jpg)
