The former head of Washington state’s juvenile rehabilitation—Felice Upton—filed a $4.75 million whistleblower claim after being abruptly fired for warning of dangerous overcrowding at youth detention centers like Green Hill and Echo Glen Washington State Standard+1.
She had raised alarm as early as 2021 about the looming consequences of closing a third facility, the Naselle Youth Camp—and again in 2023 as population pressures mounted. Her pleas for long-term solutions were dismissed, according to the Washington State Standard. When conditions escalated, the state resorted to short-term fixes like transferring youth to adult prisons and opening a stopgap facility—Harbor Heights—without addressing root causes, according to the Washington State Standard.
A Washington appeals court recently ruled that conditions at Green Hill violated state law—kids forced to urinate in jugs, weeks without mental health care, according to the Washington State Standard.
It is, tragically, all too familiar: the state fails to nurture, then punishes the neglected. It reminds us that the only thing the government runs more poorly than foster care is juvenile detention.
How this fails the orphaned youth:
- Children trapped behind bars, not healed by homes
- Whistleblowers silenced, rather than heeded
- Systems in crisis, and still refusing systemic reform
This isn’t oversight—it’s omission. Broken systems aren’t mere bureaucracy gone wrong. They are violence against the vulnerable. We must not look away. We must remember, speak, and act on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.
