The Mitchell Youth Diversion Office seeks to keep children out of incarceration through a new type of program that complements its existing diversion resources.
Davison County is one of three counties in South Dakota taking a new approach to keeping minors from being detained and the criminal justice system as a whole. As part of its youth diversion program, Davison, Brown and Codington counties are establishing Court Resource Homes. There, an approved foster family will care for a low-risk juvenile offender for up to a week, so the juvenile can remain in the community rather than being transferred to a juvenile correctional facility.
While Minnehaha County and Pennington County have juvenile diversion resources, Davison County needed to find something that would work for the county and for the families, said Alicia Odland, who works in the district attorney’s office. Davison County State.
“SO [we] it just had to be creative to create what works for our community with the limited resources we have that would also benefit and do good things with our youths in the community,” Odland said.
The idea for better diversion programs was born in 2020 by Katie Buschbach and Odland, who work at the Davison County State’s Attorney’s Office as youth diversion coordinators. As for the judicial resource house, it was inspired by a similar program in rural Oregon.
“We try to keep as much of [the kids] out of court, starting with detention alternatives,” Odland said. “And from there, if we can keep them out, we try to keep them out of the justice system when possible.”
Over the past three years of the diversion program, Buschbach said he had a 95% success rate of minors not returning through the court system. Generally, between 65 and 75 minors follow the diversion program.
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Judicial resource houses adopting new approaches to juvenile justice
The Court Resource Home program is part of a three-year, $20,000 grant from the Council for Juvenile Services, through the South Dakota Department of Corrections. Davison County recently received its second year of funding for the program, Buschbach said.
The family chosen by the county for the resource house is licensed by the state to be a foster family, Odland explained. From there, a minor between the ages of 11 and 15 who is selected for the diversion program and deemed not to pose a security threat can be placed in the home for a period of between one night and one week.
For example, if a minor continues to threaten to run away or is caught in a situation where they threw something in a fight when they are not usually violent, they could be a candidate for the resource house.
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“Those kind of situations to give them a break so both parties can calm down and get back together after they’ve calmed down,” Odland said.
Buschbach said by email that with the program, at least 12 children could be placed in the home per year, based on previous reports of children who have benefited from the service.
The home keeps low-level juvenile offenders out of the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center, which is more than 70 miles away and close to their communities.
Davison County also uses electronic monitoring for minors so they can stay home while they wait for their court hearing.
Diversion program, electronic monitoring cheaper for Davison County than transportation to detention center
While the diversion program keeps Davison County children out of the juvenile court system, it also saves money for the county.
John Claggett, vice chairman of the Davison County Commission who served for 16 years, said the county saved at least $190,000 by keeping juveniles out of the court system, calling the savings “state of the art.” iceberg”.
Rather than spending money transporting minors to detention centers in Sioux Falls or even Nebraska, which Claggett said was happening, and then back to the courthouse for the minor’s hearing, the county de Davison funds electronic monitoring of minors.
“Electronics has been a real game-changer since I started and today it’s around $240 a day, so switch things up,” Claggett said.
He added that the long-term benefit of the court resource house and other youth diversion programs is that it keeps juveniles out of the incarceration system, which also saves on the costs of the county, prisons to the provision of competent legal representation.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, youth who are placed in diversion programs are 45% less likely to re-offend than youth who go through a formal court process.
Expansion to rest of South Dakota hoped for
Claggett said his biggest hope for the Judicial Resource Homes program is for it to expand to every community across the state.
Aberdeen and Watertown are also part of the pilot project.
But Aberdeen has been unable to find a licensed foster family to run the scheme, said Diversion Scheme Coordinator Kelsi Vinger.
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It’s a similar problem Mitchell has now. While the county was the first to get a foster family approved for the state’s Court Resource Home and reportedly actively took children for the program, the family recently moved.
“Now we’re back to work and we’re finding another family who will fit in with this,” Odland said.
Despite the hiatus, Odland remains confident that the Court Resource Center will work and fit into the larger picture of diversion resources in Davison County and across the state.
“We are all ready for this because I think it will be a huge benefit for the community and for the children,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Court resource home in Davison County last juvenile diversion program