PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
enly barred the same girl from
visiting her mother because administrators confused her with
another inmate whose mother had
brought cash into the facility during visiting hours — a major violation of contraband policy.
Starting last December, a new
group of girls was transferred into
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
who witnessed the summer 2012
riot in the facility, there are no
police reports or Florida Department of Juvenile Justice incident
reports describing these events.
Bowers and Chelsea Fernandez,
19, who was also at Broward Girls
last year, said they remembered
YSI staff from nearby Thompson
As a juvenile judge, he thought he was sending boys
to a moderate-risk program with outdoor wilderness
activities. What he found was a hardcore prison.
the facility, after a program in the
northern part of the state shut
down. Violent fights erupted over
turf, the former inmate said. “They
were just psychotic,” she said. “I
was like, ‘I’ve had enough of this,
I’ve been here for 10 months.’”
Earlier this year, the juvenile
public defender in Palm Beach
County, Barbara White, managed
to get the