Tag: kim dvorchak

A residential teen treatment center in Pueblo, Colorado, is under fire for housing children in prolonged solitary confinement.

Prison work is an insular occupation. Corrections officials tend to inhabit a culture unto themselves-- tight-lipped, low profile and tough as nails. Tom Clements was an exception.

Lopsided percentages of young people charged as adults in Colorado courts appear to be ethic minority youth, an apparent bias rights activists suggest should be examined, especially given that Colorado is one of only 14 states in the country to embrace the hard-line "direct file" system, where district attorneys decide, without judicial review, whom to try as adults. According to analysts, the "direct file" system can be counterproductive and, in Colorado at least, is plagued by inadequate data collection and review. Indeed, even the most basic information, like the ethnic makeup of the juveniles being charged with adult crimes, is unreliable or simply not collected.