Juvenile justice department director Burgess to retire

Molly Ball

Thursday, May 26, 2005 | 9:44 a.m.

Kirby Burgess, director of the county's juvenile justice department, announced Wednesday that he is retiring after more than three decades with the county.

Burgess's last day will be Sept. 2. The county will employ a search firm to conduct a national hunt for his replacement, Assistant County Manager Catherine Cortez Masto said.

The Juvenile Justice Department that Burgess leads handles the detention and probation of juvenile delinquents. Its director oversees a budget of about $40 million and about 400 full-time employees.

Burgess said he plans to stay in Las Vegas and pursue business opportunities as well as doing volunteer work in his area of expertise.

"I'm going to continue my involvement with the community, advocating for children and families," he said.

A social worker by training, the 53-year-old Burgess dedicated his tenure to attempting to steer juvenile delinquents away from criminal careers and to ending racial disparities in juvenile justice.

One of the high points in his career was when in 1996 President Bill Clinton toured Burgess' youth programs and sat in on a youth panel Burgess chaired. Besides his admiration for Clinton and the thrill of such recognition, Burgess said, it was an important occasion for another reason.

"It was only the second time in my life I rode in a limousine," he said.

Burgess grew up in rural Arkansas and came to Nevada on a grant to study social work at UNLV. Taking a job as a foster care worker upon graduation, he went on to various jobs with the county's Department of Family and Youth Services, including positions in Child Protective Services and Juvenile Probation.

After a stint with the county manager's office, Burgess became director of the Family and Youth Department in 1994. In 2002, that department split in two to give child welfare its own department.

Burgess said the hallmark of his tenure was "system changes that have provided alternatives to crime." Working to rehabilitate youths, the county has developed a program to keep low-level offenders out of the juvenile justice system; a special program for teenage girls; and programs to provide the youths with counseling and job training.

In the last year, Burgess has helmed the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, which aims to keep youths out of the detention facility when it is safe to do so, on the theory that children are traumatized by being treated as criminals. Backed by a $100,000 grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the year-old initiative has ended overcrowding at juvenile hall.

"Every kid who gets in trouble with the law is not going to be a career criminal," Burgess said. "It's up to us as adults to help guide them so they can have a chance to become successful, taxpaying citizens."

Burgess said he also spent years campaigning for measures to address the disproportionate number of minorities in the system. While the problem remains, he said, the topic has finally become part of the department's discourse.

"I finally made that an agenda, and we are trying to do things to give kids an opportunity when they deserve it," he said.

Juvenile Judge William Voy, who has worked closely with Burgess since taking office last year, described him as a good administrator and a humble man who knew everyone's name, from the janitor to the county commissioners.

Voy credited Burgess with having the vision to back the detention alternatives initiative, a nontraditional approach that is not widespread.

"If it wasn't for his insight, we never would have started the detention reform initiative," Voy said. "It's a very significant accomplishment. Few jurisdictions have taken this path, and it is the right path to take."

His retirement announcement comes one month after a 16-year-old girl hanged herself in the juvenile detention facility, the first suicide there in 26 years. But Burgess and county officials said he had been planning to retire and was not asked to step down.

Although the timing of his retirement was not linked to the suicide last month of 16-year-old Brittany Kish, that event affected him deeply, Burgess said.

"I had made the plans already to move forward," he said. "But the suicide made me more determined to stick around and make sure we put some improvements in place, so it never happens again."