Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.
Clark County's Juvenile Justice Department is making strides toward improving what two nonprofit groups said earlier this summer was a critical lack of mental health services for minors in its care, the department's interim director told county commissioners Tuesday.
In a 5-0 vote, the commission approved hiring five child and family intervention specialists and one psychologist for the system.
The additions come after a May report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that recommended an increase in mental health services to "change the culture" of what researchers deemed an overly punitive system.
Michael Murphy, the Juvenile Justice Department's interim director and the county coroner, said on Tuesday that department officials are in the midst of devising a long-ranch plan to reverse the concerns raised in the report.
At the top of the list are efforts to improve conditions within department facilities and decrease what Murphy said was a disproportionate number of minorities kept in detention.
Department officials hope to begin implementing a plan for curbing the problems by January, he said.
Murphy pointed to what he said was an increase in diversion programs that help keep juveniles out of jails and to improved booking systems that have reduced waiting times from 13 to about three days.
But he warned of what he called unproven methods for addressing juvenile offenders.
"We cannot, should not and will not experiment on youth in Clark County," Murphy said.
The reports released earlier this summer found that youths in the county's juvenile hall were too often pepper-sprayed and were at times strapped to chairs by detention workers, practices the foundation and the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center said "clearly violate the civil rights of detained youth."
In his presentation Tuesday, Murphy said pepper spray incidents account for one-tenth of one percent of all responses in the center. He also said the department meets or exceeds standards set forth by the National Juvenile Detention Association, the American Probation and Parole Association and the American Corrections Association.
The report, which relied on numerous visits to the county facilities, also called upon officials to reduce use of "dangerous, punitive and counter-productive methods of control" against jailed youth.
The department was awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Casey foundation to study safety at its facilities last year. The grant is aimed at providing alternatives to detention for juveniles accused of crimes, in order to keep them from becoming career criminals.
Juvenile Justice came under scrutiny after the suicide of 16-year-old Brittany Kish earlier this year, the first such incident in 30 years. Four workers have since been recommended for discipline because of the lapses that allowed her death to occur.
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