Kentucky's DEPLORABLE Acts Of "Locking Up Kids".
Editorial | Locking up kids
A two-part series of stories in The Courier-Journal earlier this week drew attention to Kentucky’s practice of warehousing “status offenders,” the legal term given to youths charged with truancy and other nonviolent offenses, charges that wouldn’t be a violation of the law for adults.
As it has in so many additional undesirable categories, Kentucky has one of the highest rates in the nation of jailing children for these relatively minor offenses, a practice whose effectiveness is seriously questioned and one that is costly in both human and financial terms. Kentucky rounds out the top three states, along with Texas and Washington state.
Staff writers Deborah Yetter and Jason Riley reported that last year, more than 1,500 of Kentucky’s youth were sent to juvenile jails for status offenses such as missing school and running away. Cost: $210 per day per child.
There are indications that the practice has gained enough attention, and has reached enough of a critical mass, that other solutions could be explored for how better to deal with children whose problems are more firmly rooted in abuse, neglect, poverty and mental illness — something no amount of incarceration or detention can fix for a child.
They should be explored.
“There has to be a better alternative than locking a child behind a door to get their attention,” said Hasan Davis, Kentucky’s deputy director of juvenile justice. “You can detain a youth all day. If what they are running away from hasn’t been addressed, they will go back to running away.”
Some of Kentucky’s problems in dealing with status offenders stem from the gray area left by state law, which doesn’t specify exactly where the youthful offenders fit into the state’s juvenile justice or social services apparatus.
That needs to change, and more of an eye needs to be given to solutions that keep kids out of jail and in school, and ones that at least try to get to the bottom of what is causing the disruptive behavior.
Several pieces of legislation will be proposed in the upcoming session of the General Assembly, including a bill from Rep. Kelly Flood, D-Lexington, that will restrict the number of juveniles who are sent to jail. The similar bill she filed last year languished in the Senate. It deserves a better fate this time around.
Other ideas also deserve a thorough hearing and consideration: requiring more information about the child charged as a status offender; imposing expiration dates on court orders for status offenders; providing legal representation for the child; allowing school officials to provide more information about children to judges.
Clearly, Kentucky can’t — and shouldn’t — just keep locking up kids. It’s time to try something else for their sakes — and everyone else’s.
A two-part series of stories in The Courier-Journal earlier this week drew attention to Kentucky’s practice of warehousing “status offenders,” the legal term given to youths charged with truancy and other nonviolent offenses, charges that wouldn’t be a violation of the law for adults.
As it has in so many additional undesirable categories, Kentucky has one of the highest rates in the nation of jailing children for these relatively minor offenses, a practice whose effectiveness is seriously questioned and one that is costly in both human and financial terms. Kentucky rounds out the top three states, along with Texas and Washington state.
Staff writers Deborah Yetter and Jason Riley reported that last year, more than 1,500 of Kentucky’s youth were sent to juvenile jails for status offenses such as missing school and running away. Cost: $210 per day per child.
There are indications that the practice has gained enough attention, and has reached enough of a critical mass, that other solutions could be explored for how better to deal with children whose problems are more firmly rooted in abuse, neglect, poverty and mental illness — something no amount of incarceration or detention can fix for a child.
They should be explored.
“There has to be a better alternative than locking a child behind a door to get their attention,” said Hasan Davis, Kentucky’s deputy director of juvenile justice. “You can detain a youth all day. If what they are running away from hasn’t been addressed, they will go back to running away.”
Some of Kentucky’s problems in dealing with status offenders stem from the gray area left by state law, which doesn’t specify exactly where the youthful offenders fit into the state’s juvenile justice or social services apparatus.
That needs to change, and more of an eye needs to be given to solutions that keep kids out of jail and in school, and ones that at least try to get to the bottom of what is causing the disruptive behavior.
Several pieces of legislation will be proposed in the upcoming session of the General Assembly, including a bill from Rep. Kelly Flood, D-Lexington, that will restrict the number of juveniles who are sent to jail. The similar bill she filed last year languished in the Senate. It deserves a better fate this time around.
Other ideas also deserve a thorough hearing and consideration: requiring more information about the child charged as a status offender; imposing expiration dates on court orders for status offenders; providing legal representation for the child; allowing school officials to provide more information about children to judges.
Clearly, Kentucky can’t — and shouldn’t — just keep locking up kids. It’s time to try something else for their sakes — and everyone else’s.
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posted by KYJurisDoctor at 1:11 PM
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