Scotts Bluff Co. Board OK’s looking into local juvenile detention facility

Scotts Bluff Co. Board OK’s looking into local juvenile detention facility
Scotts Bluff County Chief Deputy Sheriff Troy Brown discusses rising juvenile detention numbers and the potential need for a local juvenile holding facility during Monday night’s Commissioners’ meeting (Miller/KNEB/RRN)
February 7th, 2023 | Scott Miller

Rising numbers of Juvenile Court cases where detention is deemed appropriate has Scotts Bluff County authorities starting to look at alternatives for a local juvenile detention center.

Monday night, Commissioners authorized the Sheriff’s Office to request proposals for architectural services to provide costs of potential facility options that would replace the housing of juvenile detainees elsewhere while their cases make their way through the court system, and after adjudication has been completed.

Chief Deputy Sheriff Troy Brown told the board the issue is now coming to a head, as other facilities that accept juveniles outside of the area are facing the same issues, including the facility in Casper, Wyoming, which has been in recent use by Scotts Bluff County due to its proximity. “They (juveniles) have to be stuck with felonies now before they’ll accept them, and that’s just because of their overcrowding they have to deal with,” said Brown. “We’re now running into that problem on the east side of the state, where Madison, Lancaster and Douglas (counties), they’re full all the time, and we can never get a bed available, to the point now we’re having to send kids to Woodbury, Iowa, which is near South Sioux City.

Brown said a review of the number of local juveniles requiring secure facilities found an average of about twenty a year since 2016, with the current number of nine, including three housed at the Iowa facility, which is more than eight hours away. He said other nearby jurisdictions are facing the same problem, including Goshen County and the District 11 court system based in North Platte.

The Scotts Bluff County Detention Center included a specifically-built juvenile wing when it was first constructed, but changes in state law on Juvenile Justice system and an emphasis on keeping kids out of detention facilities as much as possible led to a dramatic decrease in usage, down to as few as two or three a year. Several years ago, that section of the facility was re-purposed to house adult detainees at a time when the facility was over-populated and state officials threatened to close it down for non-compliance.

When asked why more kids are scoring so high for detention across the region and state, Brown couldn’t say exactly, but speculated there are now a lot of things youth are exposed to, including the current culture, the things they’re exposed to in the media, and issues with their home life.

Commissioners agreed it was an issue that needed to be addressed with Board Chair Ken Meyer referencing information he read in a recent article by a child psychologist. Meyer said part of what’s happening, according to the psychologist, is that we don’t have juvenile delinquency anymore, we have kids committing adult crimes. “It isn’t just a matter of busting a mailbox, slicing a tire, or whatever the case might be,” said Meyer. “We have just what you (Brown) talked about, the (teen girls) from the school and the homeless man (attacked with a hatchet in Scottsbluff). We’ve got kids that are stealing cars, we’ve got kids that are breaking and entering. We’ve got adult crimes being committed by what we used to call kids, and we treat them as juvenile delinquents. It’s not happening anymore.”

Meyer said the issue hasn’t been dealt with on a societal level, but someone will need to, and as the largest county in the Panhandle, others in the region look to Scotts Bluff County for some kind of relief.

Brown said among the options the Sheriff’s Office and Detention Center would like to look into is returning the former juvenile wing of the jail back to its’ original purpose with adding another adult building, but the question of cost needed to be answered. Commissioner Russ Reisig asked if there were other options available besides local taxpayer financing, to which Brown replied that Sheriff Mark Overman was in contact with state lawmakers to see if there might be some funding available from the state, or perhaps through federal ARPA funding they state has yet to earmark, and there may be some grants out there as well. In addition, Brown said other nearby juvenile jurisdictions have expressed interest in being able to house such detainees closer to their homes, and would be willing to shoulder some of the cost for that option. Brown noted without having a bed available when a child was ordered to be detained, there have been cases where they’ve been sent home with an ankle monitor, and sometimes get into further legal trouble.

Commissioner Mark Harris noted there are costs to the current system of housing juveniles outside of the county, with transportation, time and labor costs incurred every time a child detainee has to return for a court appearance or meeting with their attorney. He said now that times are changing with regard to the number of juveniles being detained, there is a savings that could be directed to help pay for a local facility, along with any of the funding sources mentioned by Brown. Harris said with the county still paying on the bond for the most recent adult expansion, he wasn’t favorable of doing that again, but now might be the right time to have a local juvenile facility that other jurisdictions could utilize and help absorb some of the cost.

The Board was unanimous in giving their consent to Brown’s request to find an architect who could look at the current facility, provide some options and their anticipated price tags.

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