CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The Laramie County Juvenile Services Joint Powers Board is taking steps to improve juvenile detention services in the community.
During a Cheyenne City Council work session this afternoon, Tim Thorson, the contract administrator for the board, provided the council with updates on two of the board’s priorities for the upcoming years.
Created more than a decade ago by the City of Cheyenne and Laramie County Commissioners, the board, alongside the county sheriff’s department, oversees the needs of the Juvenile Service Center, or JSC. There are 11 board members who work in Juvenile Services and four others who act as at-large members.
The JSC opened in July 2012 and houses juveniles for the Cheyenne Police Department, Laramie County Sheriff’s Department, Department of Family Services and other Wyoming law enforcement agencies. Those housed in the facility may be waiting to be seen in city, circuit or district court on a variety of charges. They may also be housed awaiting transportation to another facility.
Since the creation of the JSC, the number of kids going into detention cells has been reduced by 50%, according to Thorson. The average length of time spent in the center also decreased by roughly 50%.
Data collection regarding the success of JSCs are crucial for convincing the Wyoming legislatures or local communities to fund those services, Thorson said. That is why the board is aiming to collect detailed data about the number of juveniles going in and out of the county’s detention center.
“It’s very difficult to convince legislatures or anyone else to pay for those services if there isn’t data around juveniles,” he said during the meeting.
One of the challenges with gathering data is ensuring that it meets the requirements from the police department, sheriff’s office and DSF regarding personally identifiable information, or PII, Thorson said. The board wants to partner with the University of Wyoming to do the collection, as the university has more resources and skill for working with PII, he said. UW is also working with DFS to collect juvenile data on a statewide level.
The Laramie County Juvenile Services Joint Powers Board plans to work with the city’s Youth Alternatives program to provide track information on the number of juveniles going into non-detention services, including counseling. The board also wants to do the same with District Attorney’s Office and input information about juveniles going through the legal system into the UW’s data collection.
“Pretty soon we have the best picture we ever had about how many kids need these services, how many cases are there that could have not been in detention,” Thorson said.
The second board priority is to plan for a new group home or detention home that can provide lower level management. The county needs to accommodate for a growing number of kids in the Laramie County Crisis Centers, which is a short-term service for individuals and families navigating trauma, mental health struggles, family disturbances or child safety concerns.
The JSC also has a 24-bed facility, of which 16 are for detention and eight are for crisis. The center is reaching capacity, and the JSC will soon need to find alternative facilitates to house the kids, Thorson said. There are a variety of factors contributing to this, he said, but it is most likely due to the population increase in the county.
“Are there people in the community already working on that that the board can support then trying to take this project on?” he said “Making those decisions as a community will be the board’s responsibility as well as anyone else who wants to be involved.”
The full work session can be viewed in the video below:
