Juvenile facilities lacking

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The extended delay in infrastructure improvements has fallen heavily across Johnson County in this decade. Heaviest, as far as I can tell, on the young people who are accused of wrongdoing and taken into the juvenile justice system. The facilities, in Olathe, are overcrowded, with serious consequences.

When the place overflows, the youngsters have to be farmed out to other facilities across the state of Kansas. That separates them from their families in a time of crisis.

Most often they are temporarily housed in Shawnee, Geary and Crawford counties. Being separated from their parents is the absolute last indignity these kids should have to deal with. And it is not always possible for the parents to travel to these locations.

"It is very distressing," said Betsy Gillespie, director of corrections, in an interview. "We know that kids do better when they receive visits by families."

Yet Johnson County officials must resort to out-boarding all too frequently, at a cost of about $300,000 a year.

Currently, there are 70 beds available at the juvenile center on Spruce Street. The functional use, however, is 63 because of a mixed population of males and females, and more dangerous and less dangerous offenders.

There were an average of 69.7 residents a month housed at the facility last year. In May it jumped to 79. A total of 1,214 juveniles were admitted in 2007.

Gillespie said the center’s population has risen steadily over the last five years, from an average of 53 residents a month in 2003 to the nearly 70 last year.

The population is expected to reach an average of 113 a month by 2018, she said. It could be driven up even more as the result of a recent Kansas Supreme Court decision that gives juveniles the right to jury trials.

This project was among several capital improvement projects – including the jail – that were put on hold in 2002 to allow the county’s share of the one-quarter-cent sales tax for infrastructure to be diverted to K-12 schools. The six-year education tax, which ends in December, was needed during a financial crunch after the Kansas Legislature failed to provide adequate funding for schools.

Now the county, playing catch up, is seeking renewal of the tax for a major public safety program, including a new juvenile services complex near the current one.

The delay has taken its toll on the juvenile facilities.

As noted, the detention center is not large enough. The intake and assessment center, where young offenders are evaluated on their risk to the community and other factors, is housed in mobile homes near the detention facility.

The house arrest program is operated in cramped quarters in the center, without the privacy that is needed. Privacy is also an issue for family visits. Parents and child must meet in a gym that does not lend itself to visitations.

The $17.4 million project involves new construction and remodeling of a structure. Revenue is also earmarked for operations in the future.

The new detention facility, which would add 33 beds, would house medium security offenders, the house arrest program, the assessment segment of the intake program and a family resource center.

The structure that currently houses detention services would be renovated for maximum security youths and for booking of incoming offenders.

The family resource center is a significant part of the new plan, Gillespie said. With more space, the staff would be able to better partner with private and public agencies that need to be involved with the offenders. It would provide urgently needed space for youth/family visits.

Considered the new face of the proposed facility, the resource center would be available to youths and families to voluntarily seek help in anticipation of trouble, thus offering prevention and intervention services, Gillespie explained.

There would be space, too, she said, for protective custody of neglected or abused children, called Children in Need of Care in the juvenile program. Included, too, would be a conference center that could be used for meetings with agencies that serve the juvenile program, as well as space for training and administrative staff.

The emphasis on the family resource center is an innovative change that could take the juvenile program to a new and more productive level.

 



Contact Bob Sigman at 385-6034 or e-mail bsigman@sunpublications.com.

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