Kansas senators vote to overhaul juvenile justice system

Senator Greg Smith, R-Overland Park, left visits with Sen. Jeff Longbine, R-Emporia, on the floor of the Senate at the Statehouse in Topeka, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, after the Senate passed a massive juvenile justice reform bill aimed at reducing the number of youths who are incarcerated by putting more emphasis on community-based interventions. Smith is chairman of the Senate Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee and co-chair of the bipartisan working group.

? The Kansas Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill Tuesday that would overhaul the Kansas juvenile justice system by reducing the number of young offenders who are incarcerated and requiring community-based therapies and other kinds of interventions to keep less violent offenders out of jail.

“It re-prioritizes resources so we’re spending money and bed spaces on those kids that are really committing these violent crimes, and then reinvesting the savings that we’re getting from the bed space that’s going to open up because we’re not putting every kid in detention, so that we can have specialized, evidence-based, research-based programs that show they actually cut down on recidivism,” said Sen. Greg Smith, R-Overland Park, who chaired the committee that produced the bill.

The bill, which passed on a 38-2 vote, was a rare example of major legislation that received praise on both sides of the aisle, both for the content of the bill and the process used to produce it.

“At the end of the day, it’s about what is right for our juveniles and how we can find programs that perhaps help them get back on the right path. Our challenge will be to find ways to fund this,” said Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick.

“This is an extensive bill,” said Sen. Pat Pettey, D-Kansas City. “It definitely proves that when the body commits to putting the time into it as the committee chairman did with hearings on this bill and working this bill, that we should feel that we’ve come away with a good product.”

Senate Bill 367 grew out of a report issued last year from the Council of State Governments.

It showed that Kansas incarcerates a higher percentage of juvenile offenders than most other states do, and as many as 42 percent were being re-incarcerated for new offenses within three years of their release.

Kansas currently uses what’s called “indeterminate sentencing” for juvenile offenders, which means the length of time a juvenile is incarcerated or placed on probation can be entirely up to the discretion of the courts.

“A kid could do a minor offense and be detained out of his home for two years,” Smith said.

The bill replaces that with standard guidelines for the total length of time juvenile offenders can be under court jurisdiction: no more than 12 months for juveniles who commit misdemeanors; up to 15 months for low- and moderate-risk offenders who commit felonies; and up to 18 months for high-risk offenders who commit felonies.

The bill also sets limits on the length of time offenders can be placed on probation, and it ends the practice of sending offenders back into a detention facility for mere technical violations of the terms of their probation.

Those limits, however, would not apply to juveniles who commit “off-grid” felonies such as aggravated sodomy, rape or second-degree murder.

In most cases, offenders would be placed on probation, with requirements to go through programs or therapies aimed at preventing them from offending again.

Smith said those could include family therapy, anger management training or other alternatives to detention. “It may be something as simple as a kid goes to a two-week anger management class,” he said.

The bill has faced some opposition, notably from the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association, which questioned where the money would come from to pay for those programs.

Smith, however, said the money would come from savings the state will realize from not incarcerating as many juveniles as it does today. He said the average cost of holding someone in a juvenile correctional facility is about $90,000 a year, compared with the roughly $4,000 a year it costs to enroll that person in a community-based probation program.

The bill now goes to the House, which is expected to assign it to a committee when it returns to session next week.