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Judge cites law to see rehab plans for delinquent kids
EMMETT GEORGE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

PINE BLUFF -- Jefferson County Juvenile Court Judge Thomas E. Brown insisted this week that the state Juvenile Code gives judges the legal authority to require the state Department of Human Services to submit for his review rehabilitation plans for young offenders.
Department officials have said the law provides broad guidelines which basically leaves it to Human Services to determine the level of care for young offenders, and that rehabilitation plans need not be created unless specifically ordered by a court.
The question of providing rehabilitation to juveniles in the care of Human Services came up earlier this week during a hearing in Brown's court. The hearing ostensibly concerned a particular youngster for which Brown had not received a rehabilitation plan he had ordered. As in all juvenile cases, the name of the youth is being withheld.
But during the hearing, Brown contended that the agency has failed to provide rehabilitation for youths he commits to the care of the department and its Division of Youth Services.
Brown had threatened to hold Human Services in contempt for not providing rehabilitation plans, but instead chose to lecture newly appointed Department Director Kurt Knickrehm on the need for Human Services to do more to rehabilitate young offenders. Knickrehm and D. Franklin Arey III, the department's chief legal counsel, attended the Monday hearing.
Brown said he did not find the department in contempt Monday because he did not believe officials willfully violated his orders.
"While I was dissatisfied with the service, I did not believe it reached the level of contempt," he said.
Brown commits 35 to 40 children to Human Services custody each year, he said, and for the past four to five years, he said the department's rehabilitation services have been "marginal" at best. The department basically has ignored his orders and has not developed rehabilitation plans on a regular basis for juvenile offenders, he said.
"Think of the social repercussions if the state's assertion is correct -- that it has no legal obligation to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, if that is, in fact, what they are saying," Brown said Wednesday.
In an interview Wednesday, Brown cited Arkansas Code 9-27-331, section E, to make his point that he has the authority to require the department to submit rehabilitation plans.
The statute reads: "In every case where an order of commitment has been entered pursuant to an adjudication of delinquency, the facility to which the juvenile is committed shall, within thirty (30) days of the juvenile's commitment, prepare a written case plan which shall:

State the treatment plan for the juvenile.

State the anticipated length of commitment of the juvenile.

State recommendations as to the most appropriate post-commitment placement of the juvenile and

Specify post-commitment family services, if any, which should be ordered by the Department of Human Services."
During the hearing, Arey cited statutes which he said basically leave it up to the department to determine what services, if any, juvenile offenders receive. He said Arkansas law gives the department "broad" authority over the young offenders in its custody.
At one point, Arey mentioned youngsters being under the care, custody and control of the department. Arkansas Code 9-28-207 states that "the youth shall be under the exclusive care, custody and control of the [the department's] Division of Youth Services from the time of the lawful reception of the youth by a youth services center until the youth is released from the custody of the Division of Youth Services."
Arkansas Code 9-28-201, which details the establishment of the Division of Youth Services, reads: "Therefore, the General Assembly declares that this subchapter is necessary to create a single entity within the Department of Human Services with the primary responsibility for coordinating, sponsoring and providing services to Arkansas' youth and to create a structure within state government which will be responsive the needs of the state's youth."
Arey said Brown's order directed Youth Services to show why the department had not rehabilitated a specific youth. Arey proceeded to call witnesses who testified that efforts had been made to give the youngster psychiatric care and counseling in independent living.
Department officials had not been summoned to Brown's court to discuss treatment plans, Arey said, but to discuss the care of a particular youth
Except for an order directing the department to provide a certain kind of care to a specific offender, the department has the authority to decide what kind of care the inmate receives, Arey said.
Brown could not find the department in contempt of court unless he specifically directed the department to do something and it failed to do it, Arey said.
Arey said Wednesday that agency officials never meant to get into "a running feud" with Brown.
Brown said the meeting Monday with Arey and Knickrehm was "productive and professional."
"I generally believe they are more aware of the depth of the problem and will take steps to correct it," Brown said, adding that he realizes both Knickrehm and Arey are new to their positions.
Department spokesman Joe Quinn said that "getting into a public discourse with the judge would serve no useful purpose. We try very hard around here to get along with judges."
Pulaski County Juvenile Court Judge Joyce Williams Warren said Thursday that she plans to meet with Knickrehm later this month and the subject of more rehabilitation programs will definitely come up.
"That's the whole purpose of juvenile court," Warren said when asked about Brown's comments. "I thought everybody involved with the juvenile justice system realized that the purpose is to provide rehabilitation as well as punishment."
"Why should you have to order them [rehabilitation programs] when it is their job to provide them in the first place?" Warren said. "That's the difference between juvenile court and adult court."
Warren said she also is frustrated with Youth Services at times, but understands the agency has problems housing all the juveniles in its care and that the department has a difficult job.
"If at all possible, I try to keep from making a commitment to DYS [Youth Services] because that's supposed to be the biggest stick we have," Warren said, adding that she has been disappointed to learn in some cases that DYS simply placed offenders in detention beds. "That's not why I sent them to DYS. I sent them there for treatment. I have a detention facility of my own."
Knickrehm became the Human Services director in early January with the resignation of Lee Frazier. He was previously deputy director of the department and previously served a short time as director of the Division of Youth Services. Russell Rigsby now heads that division.

This article was published on Saturday, February 13, 1999

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