Apparently a 17-year-old juvenile offender has “got[ten] away” from the DC correctional authorities and is currently at large, possibly in D.C. Being, well, completely obsessed with The Wire, my first thought was obviously, “Holy crap, Bodie Broadus escaped juvie again!” But that’s silly. Bodie got shot down in the fourth season, so obviously he wasn’t the guy who got away, even though the situations are really pretty similar.
The real take away from the Post article, though, is found in the ninth paragraph:
Schiraldi, a former executive director of a juvenile justice think tank, was hired in 2005 to overhaul the department, then called the Youth Services Agency. Before his arrival, 26 percent of youths in custody had walked away from detention facilities or not returned from weekend passes.
Twenty-six percent! Holy crap! I know the District has its share of financial difficulties, but are they not even putting locks on the doors at the detention facilities anymore? To be fair, it does look like the escape rate (as it were) has dropped to a more respectable 5 percent, but I mean, that’s still just a lot of people getting away from a place that is at least theoretically meant to keep them contained.
Anyway, the main point of this post is that The Wire is complete spectacular-ness, and you should really watch all five seasons if you haven’t already. I’ll lend you the DVDs!
I think it is scary that we can’t keep the criminals locked up! What if they turn up in my neighborhood grocery store squeezing all of the produce just for kicks!?!?! I like to think that my Hy-Vee is villan free and that I can be free to wander around safely, even to the frozen food section where there usually aren’t any people there…
If you send the Wire to Josh and Nicole, maybe they’ll move to Chicago. Please send them your copy.