Washington, D.C
DC’s Youth Rehabilitation Services director asked to resign
Director of DC’s Youth Rehabilitation Providers resigns
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed Monday that one other metropolis director is out. FOX 5’s Stephanie Ramirez studies on Division of Youth Rehabilitation Providers (DYRS) Director Hilary Cairns’s resignation.
WASHINGTON – D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed Monday, one other metropolis director is out.
FOX 5 was informed that Division of Youth Rehabilitation Providers (DYRS) Director Hilary Cairns resigned from her place final week.
At a ribbon-cutting occasion in Southeast D.C. on Monday, FOX 5 additionally requested the mayor about Cairns’ resignation and whether or not there was any fact to the knowledge shared that Cairns was compelled to resign.
“I requested for her resignation. There’s fact there,” Mayor Bowser responded.
When requested why, Bowser mentioned it is as a result of she thinks that we “want some new management on the company.” However she would not go into additional particulars.
DRYS runs programming for troubled youth within the District and can be answerable for the custody of younger individuals inside the metropolis’s juvenile system, and the rehabilitation of these younger individuals.
An announcement from the Mayor’s workplace reads: “We thank Director Cairns for her service and we’re additionally grateful for Director Clarence “Trey” Stanback for stepping as much as lead the Division of Youth Rehabilitation Providers. Anybody excited about serving younger individuals in D.C. and supporting their households and communities is welcome to use to steer DYRS at mota.dc.gov.”
Trey Stanback, Interim Director of the Division of Youth Rehabilitation Providers
“To take away Hilary is unconscionable,” mentioned Sandra Seegars with the Involved Residents Towards Violence.
Throughout a digital Recreation, Libraries and Youth Affairs Committee efficiency oversight listening to held Monday, Seegars mentioned Cairns’ resignation was carried out for no obvious purpose besides that they’re transferring in one other route.
“Hilary was already transferring in the correct route,” Seegars mentioned. “She was employed 18 months in the past.”
Committee Chair Councilmember Trayon White additionally expressed his issues with Cairns’ resignation coming days earlier than the oversight listening to could possibly be held.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser chosen Hilary Cairns to steer DYRS in 2021. In response to her profile, the town credit Cairns with “main the creation of the town’s diversion program” and with engaged on “initiatives to lower juvenile justice and baby welfare involvement” in her earlier function with the Division of Human Providers earlier than being tapped to steer DYRS.
This variation comes as D.C. crime has come below the highlight.
Simply final week, Congress members within the Home took a historic vote to overturn the town’s legal code rewrite, with some lawmakers agreeing with the mayor’s issues. The mayor beforehand famous, whereas discussing juvenile crime and the legal code overwrite, that she felt insurance policies that cut back penalties ship the fallacious message.
The legal code overhaul doesn’t deal with juvenile crime.
READ MORE: Mayor Bowser proposes modifications to DC’s controversial legal code
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Robert Contee III additionally beforehand raised issues that juvenile offenders have been being launched too simply concerning the rise of youth-involved carjackings over the previous couple of years.
In response to D.C. Police knowledge on carjackings, about 75% of carjacking arrests between Jan. 1 by way of Feb. 13, contain juveniles. At the least 71 carjackings have been reported throughout that point.
D.C. Police additionally beforehand shared the juvenile arrest knowledge beneath with FOX 5. It exhibits the variety of juveniles arrested in 2022 is decrease in a number of classes than the variety of younger individuals arrested in 2019. Firearm offenses is one specific class the place arrests grew since 2019.
Within the Monday digital listening to, Councilmember White requested a Georgetown skilled in regards to the two narratives: D.C. is just too lenient on crime – and that incarceration has not been a productive device. The director answered that he believes arrests, “do correlate to true crime within the District of Columbia when it pertains to younger individuals.”
Mayor Bowser proposes modifications to DC revised legal code
Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed amendments to D.C.’s controversial legal code. Congressional Republicans just lately took a vote disapproving the invoice handed by the D.C. Council. FOX 5’s Katie Barlow studies from Northwest with the most recent.
“Previous to the pandemic, we have been arresting far too many younger individuals for misdemeanors that basically corresponded to formative adolescent conduct slightly than precise true crime. So, what you’ve seen through the pandemic with additional declines in youth arrests is that we’re beginning to deal with critical conduct slightly than criminalizing adolescents,” mentioned Eduardo Ferrer, coverage director for Georgetown’s Juvenile Justice Initiative.
FOX 5 reached out to Hilary Cairns for remark. She has not responded but.