What it's like to be in a New Mexico juvenile detention center

 To who this may concern. I’m a ‘resident’ at the juvenile detention center in Albuquerque, NM, and as someone who lives here, I would like to talk about our conditions here.  I’ve been here in the facility for 15 months and I’ve seen a lot of shit happen here and I’ve seen staff hurt the kids during restraints. I seen the bruises, black eyes and marks all over a couple of kids and the kids have too much pride to be a ‘snitch’ to speak out about it.”

Most days we have to wait hours to go to the restroom, which has affected some of the kids and when you halft to hold your pee for that long it hurts. Some people can’t make it to the restroom, so they pee in cups or milk cartons and if the staff finds out, they get in trouble. Some people can’t make it to the restroom, so they pee in cups or milk cartons and if the staff finds out, they get in trouble.

The laundry is never clean. It smells like pee or mildew and that’s what it smells like every time the same person that does the laundry is in charge of giving us sheets and blankets, which smell the same and we have to use them for months because the laundry person can’t or won’t exchange them.

There is APS (Albuquerque Public Schools) building in the facility with a library but we’re not allowed to take books back to the pod even if a teacher gives it to us... Our mail is held for weeks before we actually get it. Sometimes our mail disappears out of nowhere, even though you know it got there and it’s our only communication with brothers and sisters and aunties, uncles because we are only allowed to call and visit our parents and grandparents.

We’re locked down a lot, so most days we don’t get to do our hygiene. So by the time a new staff comes in and we ask to brush our teeth, they don’t let us because it’s supposed to be done at a certain time. School gets canceled more than it’s supposed to, so a lot of us are behind.

We have brought these things up to the facility, went through the proper channels to get these things fixed. We even brought these things up to the assistant director of the facility. Nothing changed. Actually things are getting worse and worse...I didn’t put my name because I’m scared of the repercussions of speaking out against the facility.