Detention is used too often by the courts to punish status offenders and too many status offenders are held in contempt of court for failure to follow the orders of a judge relating to their status offense.

Too many status offenders are securely detained in Kentucky. The rate for the secure detention of status offenders reported to the OJJDP in DJJ’s monitoring report was 26.64 per 100,000, which is below the 29.4 per 100,000 upper limit established by the OJJDP for a state to receive the 25% of formula grant funding associated with the deinstitutionalization of status offenders, however this rate is still well above the de minimis rate of 5.8 per 100,000 for a state to be in full compliance with the provisions of the JJDP Act. Our rate is uncomfortably close to the upper limit and even a small increase in the number of status offenders securely detained could result in us losing the 25% of formula grant funding associated with this requirement.

The cost of housing a status offender in secured detention does not provide enough benefit to justify the cost for this type of offender.

At an average cost of $90 per day, this approach is neither a cost effective or efficient method of addressing status offenders. A status offender sentenced to serve 30 days in detention due to contempt will cost the state $2,700. The same status offender placed in therapeutic foster care or an emergency shelter for the same amount of time at an average cost of $50 per day will cost the state $1,500 – a savings of $1,200 over secure detention. Project this figure out over just one month assuming that just 200 of the available 532 detention beds are filled by status offenders for 30 days and the cost savings achieved through the use of alternative placements is $240,000. Cost savings should be achieved through the use of crisis intervention and casework services that would permit status offenders to remain in their homes while receiving appropriate services.

• DJJ encourages courts to exercise appropriate discretion in their use of secure detention within Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, and emphasizes that they must take care not to use secure detention in inappropriately.
• DJJ believes that early prevention and intervention is the most cost effective and efficient way to ultimately address juvenile crime
• DJJ recommends the development of special services and programs to address the needs of status offenders and their families and encourages courts to utilize these services and programs rather than imposing secure detention on status offenders.

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