Outrageous! Just because a kid is threatening and inflicting violence against other kids in the jail, doesn't mean they should be prevented from doing it again.

Either that or maybe house them in Lester's man-bun?

Better life choices help keep you out of jail.

They're already serving their punishment, there's no need be cruel.

@3: Thank you raindrop.

@3 @4 So how would you suggest they handle violent inmates who attack other inmates and staff?

Have them over for tea and a nice chat?

@5 probably a hug circle with the family of the murderer's victim

@6 It almost sounds like we'll need to build a new juvenile jail in King County to handle your hugging programs.

This is one of the best Stranger articles I've ever read, complete with facts and data and relevant contextual information and free from pseudo-intellectual musing.

Thanks Lester! More like this, please and keep us posted on this topic.

Obviously no youth should ever be in solitary, or juvenile detention for any reason. They are too young to know that when they robbed someone at gun point their actions could result in 10-15 years in jail. Who needs Police anyways? They just shoot people. Nikkita Oliver was right. We just need to Police within our own communities and get rid of the evil Police. I wish we had a 30 year old law student graduate with zero work experience who never held public office as our Mayor instead of a former U.S. attorney with more experience in her pinky finger running things.

@10 Haven't you ever seen Oliver in action defending da yoots?

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7BMCZdXSlk

My my, it seems raindrop and I touched a nerve didn't we? So invested in cruelty for cruelty's sake! Not to mention some of you don't seem to have even read the article......

Jeez I better not sigh too hard in this comments section, lest all these straw men crumple

Excellent reporting on a critically important topic of our time Lester. Please keep up the excellent work. It's invaluable and there are so few journalists out there addressing this.
We often hear the refrain "well the law is the law" to justify the most punitive punishments based on the most technical legal definition of a law, but in this case we have a clear example of the contempt those who enforce the violence of the state against its citizens feel for the laws they are tasked with upholding, which is none at all.
We have seen this over and over. Unless and until laws directed at law enforcement carry actual sanctions for violators, they will continue to be ignored.
What a lack of imagination we show as a society in allowing incarceration of our youth on such a massive scale. America is not normal. Most civilized cultures do not respond to problematic youth with large scale incarceration. I think we get a good sense of how our new youth jail will be used here and why Darron Morris was so against the idea.
Our collective blood lust for revenge, even against children is exacted at an enormous financial and emotional cost to our society. It coarsens us and makes us less caring as .a society when we so frequently respond to a range of issues with violent incarceration.
Incarceration as a response is almost certainly making the underlying issue that led to the original problem worse and more costly to society. I hope whatever pre-civilization joy and satisfaction our need for revenge against children brings us is worth the enormous cost for those who consistently demand it.

Lester, do you not think the inmates may have become better people for their illegal stint in Solitary? Be a critical thinker!