New youth corrections agency debated

Thursday, Feb. 19, 1998 | 9:40 a.m.

But other officials - including Gov. Bob Miller - see a benefit to maintaining the status quo.

The separate division plan surfaced in last year's Legislature during discussions of overcrowding in existing juvenile facilities.

But David Bash, a former state juvenile justice official who now serves on committees addressing such issues, said the idea also arises out of a system that had been top-heavy with bureaucrats.

Because of the problem, he said youth corrections was not represented properly within the Division of Child and Family Services, which has to oversee other juvenile programs such as foster care, mental health, or abuse and neglect.

If youth corrections separated from the programs and formed its own unit within the state Department of Human Resources, Bash said it could press more strongly for its priorities in the juvenile justice area.

Critics include Anne Nelson, legal counsel to Gov. Bob Miller and a former Washoe County juvenile prosecutor, who said her office would be "vehemently opposed" to youth corrections splitting off.

"Gov. Miller in 1991 formed the Division of Child and Family Services to bring all the resources under one umbrella," she said. "Quite often you'll find the things that lead to abuse and neglect and delinquency are the same issues.

"You have kids who are 7- and 8-years-old in the system for abuse and neglect, and their older siblings will be there for delinquency. If you break youth corrections out, you'll end up with a punitive agency that doesn't have the preventative services, the counseling services, the social services they have now."

Kirby Burgess, director of Clark County's Family and Youth Services, says he's not sure how the debate will end.

"I have juvenile probation, prevention, Child Protective Services and Spring Mountain Youth Camp, and all of those have competing needs, some more than others," Burgess said. "But I like having them all under one agency because I can coordinate the resources and better serve the public."

The 1997 Legislature asked the Juvenile Justice Commission, a coalition of professionals handling all aspects of youth services, to conduct public hearings on the issue and report back by midyear.