Judges order faster enforcement of juvenile sentences

      A court order will keep Nevada's convicted juveniles from languishing in overcrowded county detention facilities for as long as three months before they officially begin serving their sentences.
      Not only is the lag time "clobbering the county pocketbook," but in the process of waiting around, "the constitutional rights of these kids are really being impaired," Juvenile Court Judge Terrance Marren said.
      The April 10 order, signed by judges in Clark and Washoe counties, mandates that juveniles remanded to the state's Caliente or Elko youth training centers be taken there within 30 days of their sentencing.
      The order goes into effect in early June and has the state's Division of Child and Family Services scrambling for funds to comply.
      The training centers offer approximately seven-month long counseling and education programs.
      The youths, unlike adults, are sentenced to completion of the program rather than incarceration for a period of time.
      So the extra two months many now spend in Clark County's Zenoff Hall can't be taken off their sentences as credit for time served. Adult offenders have the number of days spent in county jail deducted from their prison sentence.
      Those months are simply "dead time" when there is no rehabilitation going on, according to the order. The extra time is "deemed to be a denial of due process and is a violation of the constitutional rights," the judges wrote.
      Youth idling away dead time contribute to the substantial overcrowding of Zenoff Hall, according to Clark County's Family and Youth Services Director, Kirby Burgess.
      The facility was built to house 112 juvenile offenders. In March, Zenoff had an average of 210 juveniles at any given time -- each costing county taxpayers $120 per day, Burgess said.
      Many of the juveniles awaiting the Elko or Caliente centers are "high-risk offenders, the types who are most likely to be involved in fights or assaults against other kids or the staff," he noted.
      The state also has an overcrowding problem and needs an emergency cash infusion to live up to the judges' order, according to Ken Patterson, head of the state's Division of Child and Family Services. Caliente and Elko are running at 110 percent capacity, housing approximately 330 juveniles, Patterson said.
      Today Patterson was scheduled to meet with members of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committee to ask for $5,470 for this year.
      That money would help streamline the system in part by allowing juveniles to go through a three-week evaluation process while still in the county facility, Patterson said. The evaluation is currently done in Elko.
      Money also can be spent to place juveniles in privately owned training camps or, if necessary, out of state.
      Patterson will ask for that block grant to be added to the next budget along with an additional $1.9 million to be used to expand the programs. However, none of that money would go toward adding beds to either the Elko or Caliente centers.
      "When we build new programs they need to be closer to where the majority of Nevadans live," Patterson said.