Has New York's 'Penal Colony For Kids' Outlived Its Usefulness?

New York Magazine profiles Tryon Residential Center, a troubled upstate juvenile detention facility that it describes as a "penal colony for kids." Located an hour northwest of Albany, the lockup is filled with youths from New York City's poor neighborhoods. Opened in 1966, it is best known as the reform school where 12-year-old Mike Tyson first learned how to box.

Last summer, the U.S. Department of Justice threatened to take over New York’s juvenile-prison system after investigating Tryon and two other state facilities and uncovering a litany of abuses: employees restraining kids so often and with so much force that kids had endured concussions, broken teeth, and broken bones. Gov. David Paterson convened a task force to investigate, and last week proposed a plan to shut down Tryon’s boys’ facility.