Court records reveal COVID-19’s psychological toll on Puerto Rico’s incarcerated youths

At Puerto Rico’s two juvenile lockups near the island’s southern coast, isolation among detained youths — and temporary shortages among the staff trained to deal with it — have led to a worrisome spike in the number of youths contemplating or attempting to injure themselves, reports say. Puerto Rico’s juvenile justice system has been praised for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calling it “a case study” for preventing serious outbreaks among incarcerated people and staff. But federal court records show that in the aftermath of stri...