BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. – Bernalillo County has developed an official “improvement plan”  with some short-term and long-term goals after a hourslong disturbance at the Youth Services Center.

Officials say they’ve learned a lot since Christmas Day. 

“That’s exactly what we’ve done as a result of the 25th.  We’ve gone back and taken YSC and kind of peeled it down to the foundation and are starting to build it back up to where it needs to be. And that’s what you see in what was released by the county commissioners earlier today,” said Greg Perez, a Bernalillo County deputy manager for public safety. 

They released both immediate steps and upcoming steps for improvement. 

Immediate Steps in Place:

• Hiring a YSC Director by April 1, 2024.
• Increase the training schedule for new staff.
• Incorporate New Training Topics for existing staff.
• Ongoing Rapid-Hire Events.
• Evaluate bathrooms for enhanced privacy.
• Identify new staffing patterns.
• Work towards APS virtual classroom and in-person teachers.
• Increase resident programming with stakeholders’ involvement.

Upcoming Steps:

• Outsourcing all laundry to a commercial vendor.
• Request $1 million dollars for facility improvement.
• Working together with stakeholders to maintain a ratio of eight residents to every one employee to allow for enhanced programming and increased out of cell time. 

The problem has been they aren’t fully staffed, which means all the beds at the Youth Services Center can’t be occupied until that’s fixed. 

They are optimistic they’ll close that gap soon, based on the success of the last rapid-hire event. 

“We got 28 individuals. Our academy is running right now.  We broke it in to two separate academies, which is the first time we’ve had a traditional academy, which is part of the lessons learned. So we have a six-week academy that’s running with 28 individuals in there,” said Perez.

KOB 4 asked the governor during the legislative session at the beginning of this month about the juvenile crime crisis. She placed the blame almost solely on local bodies of government across the state.  

“What you really want in the juvenile detention sector is more money because we don’t have enough staff, you pointed that out.  We agree with you.  We don’t have enough oversight by local bodies of government, who in large part, run the juvenile detention system or centers. In addition, they haven’t asked for any money. It’s as if we’re sort of not paying attention to the kinds of increases we’re seeing all over the state,” said Lujan Grisham in early February.

Lujan Grisham mentioned the lack of staffing there as well. 

The county confirmed that around the time of the disturbance they had a total of 45 guards, fully staffed would have meant 98. 

MORE:

• Police launch investigation into disturbance at Bernalillo Youth Detention Center
• New video shows disturbance inside Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center