Youth Justice Milwaukee
Press Release

Youth Justice Milwaukee: Lincoln Hills Continued Use of Pepper Spray, Suicide Risk Shows Youth Prison Model is Broken

"We know harm is being done to children at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake."

By - Apr 19th, 2019 02:38 pm
Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake School. Photo from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Lincoln Hills School and Copper Lake School. Photo from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Milwaukee, WI – In response to the news that the use of pepper spray on young people and continued high risk of suicide by the youth at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake is still common and that Attorney General Kaul will not open a new investigation into the matter, Youth Justice Milwaukee co-founder Sharlen Moore released the following statement:

“We know harm is being done to children at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. The stories that came out of the recent investigation into the youth prison were horrific and heartbreaking. As we get closer to closing Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, we cannot make the same mistakes of locking our young people away. The youth prison model is unfixable and we owe it to our youth to invest in a strong, trauma-informed continuum of care and say no to construction of new, smaller youth prisons.”

Youth Justice Milwaukee is a broad-based campaign advocating for community-based, family-centered, restorative programs as an alternative to locking up children in Wisconsin’s youth prisons. Youth Justice Milwaukee represents a coalition of persons who were incarcerated as youth, families of youth who are or were incarcerated, service providers, and local and national youth justice advocates.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.

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