

Editorial | Bill would keep some kids in jail

2:46 AM, Mar. 14, 2014  |  Comments
A teen works on schoolwork at a detention center in Hardin County.
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No good deed goes unpunished in Frankfort.

That's evidenced by what happened to Senate Bill 200 Thursday, a major effort to update and improve Kentucky's juvenile justice laws for minor offenders-especially when it comes to those who commit "status offenses," actions which would not be an offense for an adult such as missing school or running away.

Despite months of exhaustive effort by a statewide task force to create a plan that included keeping status offenders out of jail, opposition from some lawmakers and outside critics derailed their work.

As a result, the version of SB 200 that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday no longer includes what supporters view as a key component-removing status offenders from the courtroom altogether and handling their cases in local communities through services meant to get at the root of what's causing them to run away or miss school.

Removing those provisions cuts the heart out of SB 200 and is an enormous disservice to those who worked on it as well as the more than 1,000 youths locked up each year in Kentucky's juvenile detention centers. Truancy is the leading reason kids end up in court as status offenders and it's usually for causes such as mental illness, homelessness, extreme poverty or drug or alcohol abuse in the home by adults who should be getting their kids get to school.

The loss of that provision from the bill is a "big disappointment," said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates.

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, a Hopkinsville Republican who chairs the committee and is the sponsor of SB 200, indicated he is not happy that, to win support for the bill, he had to agree to delete the provision that would keep status offenders outside the court system.

But he said he hopes the matter can be addressed in future years as lawmakers and others have a chance to determine how well the bill's other provisions are working to help steer minor offenders out of juvenile detention and into services meant to keep them out of trouble.

Among those who fought the protections for status offenders were some school administrators who apparently want the option, or the "hammer," as one put it, of asking judges to put kids who miss school in jail for contempt of court.

Also, some lawmakers, including Sen. John Schickel, a Republican from Union, oppose bringing Kentucky in line with nearly all other states when it comes to keeping status offenders out of jail, arguing it's a useful tool in some cases.

"That's a bunch of baloney!" he said about claims such kids shouldn't be jailed.

Mr. Brooks rightly has little patience for such arguments.

"It's not baloney," he said. "The research is clear. Detaining status offenders doesn't work."

Incredibly, Sen. Schickel also tried to argue that juvenile detention centers-where kids are locked up and often required to wear uniforms-are not jails.

"We don't lock kids in jails," he said. "We put them in secure detention facilities."

A jail is a jail, whether it's to detain adults or children. Experts, including Kentucky's own juvenile justice officials, many judges and a growing number of counties don't believe status offenders belong there.

They don't. If lawmakers can't fix this problem this year, they should do so in the future.

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