youth detention center

State and local police say they may need more resources if the Hampstead facility increases call volume.

The Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly called the Youth Development Center, has been under criminal investigation since 2019.

"If you look at the amount of claims filed, the gross amount of all the claims sought, already, for 92 claims, it's $82 million,” said John Broderick, former chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. “You can do the math."

Attorneys previously announced they had reached an undisclosed settlement through the fund on a behalf of a client for a lower amount.

The lawsuits filed so far allege abuse by 150 staffers from 1960 to 2018, including gang rapes, forcing children to fight each other for food, and locking them in solitary confinement for weeks or months.

Debate over the future of the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester began years ago, but has come to a boil amid horrific sexual abuse allegations.

After citing multiple concerns, lawmakers declined Wednesday to approve the Attorney General’s Office’s proposed plan for compensating hundreds of people sexually and physically abused while held at the former Youth Development Center.

AP: While consolidation brings the "the risk of cookie cutter dispositions," proceeding with individual cases would present a "backbreaking clerical burden" for the court, said Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman.