Editorial: Initiative is paying off

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005 | 8:46 a.m.

Juvenile Court Judge William Voy is not one to allow problems to fester. When he saw that nonviolent youths were routinely being locked up until their cases were disposed of in court, he helped create the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. This program ensures that only those youths who represent a danger to society are detained until their court dates.

Now he's working on behalf of youths who have been lightly sentenced. They are not dangerous, but must wait in jail because there are no immediate vacancies in the group homes or treatment programs to which they've been assigned.

Along with Kirby Burgess, director of the Clark County Juvenile Justice Services Department, Voy is close to getting a youth halfway house built -- at no cost to taxpayers. A nonprofit organization would build the facility on Clark County land. And it would be run by staff members from the youth detention center, who are available because of Voy's initiative in decreasing the inmate population there. At the halfway house, the youths would have a productive life, one that would include school.

Voy is showing the kind of initiative we admire in public officials.