MILWAUKEE — Mayor Cavalier Johnson on Tuesday signed the council file clearing the way for a new state juvenile correctional facility to be built on the city’s north side.
The new youth detention center will be located at 7930 W. Clinton Ave in Milwaukee. One of the main objectives of the new facility is to keep detained juveniles closer to family and friends. The facility is also expected to provide “better and more effective services” to Milwaukee-area juveniles. The new facility will have 32 beds.
According to Mayor Johnson, “giving up” on young people is “simply not an option.” He adds that this new juvenile facility helps showcase that.
“I want these young people under the state’s provision to build positive and healthy lives,” Johnson said. “I want them to have access to local services that can be life changing. That’s not readily available for young people sent off to the far northern regions of Wisconsin. That can only happen at a facility here in our community. That can happen at a facility a few blocks away from where we stand right now.”
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Co-Founder & Director of both Youth Justice Milwaukee and Urban Underground Sharlen Moore said opening this new juvenile facility is an “opportunity to support our children.”
“This is an opportunity for us to support young people in a way hasn’t been done before,” Moore said. “This is an opportunity to bring our children closer to home. These are not criminals. These are young people who have made some really bad decisions in their life. This is an opportunity for them and our community to do better by them.”
In response to pushback by residents who live in the community where the new facility is being built, Moore said the goal is to further the support given to children in Milwaukee.
“I want the residents of this community to know that we are not dumping or doing anything to this community but to say ‘how can we support our children,'” Moore said.
A spectator who stopped by St. Matthew CME Church to watch Mayor Johnson sign the file, Quinn Taylor, said the facility should help with mental illness in children that live in Milwaukee saying “a lot of our youth suffer from some type of mental illness.” Taylor said he believes this new center “will help address some of that” by “looking at the problem through a different lens.”
“I’m glad that we’re bringing a facility here in Milwaukee,” Taylor said. “I think it’ll help address some of the problems with our youth. The fact that it’s a restorative system, that they’re looking to create programs to better extend the life of youth and to head them in a different direction.”
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith 
Photo Courtesy of WTMJ’s Jason Smith
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