Youthful Offender System Updates

      Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning the Treatment of Persons with Behavioral Health Disorders in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Systems. Current law establishes the youthful offender system (system) in the department of corrections (department) as a sentencing option that provides a continuum of services. The bill:

• Updates references to the juveniles and young adults who are eligible for or participating in the system;
• Revises certain legislative intent provisions to emphasize lasting behavioral changes in preparation for reentry, trauma-informed care, addressing criminogenic risk, accountability, healthy relationship building, and system participant and staff safety;
• Expresses the general assembly's intent that juveniles and young adults with physical, intellectual, mental, or behavioral health disabilities or conditions, receive equitable treatment in sentencing to the system and reasonable accommodations once in the system;
• Adds certain data related to system completion rates to an existing annual reporting requirement for the department;
• Adds requirements for evidence-informed rehabilitative treatment and life skills programming and for individual therapy, family therapy, or substance use disorder treatment;
• Establishes requirements for system participant evaluations, plans for addressing participants' needs and skills, and case manager duties;
• Requires the department, in consultation with relevant experts, to make and publish on its website recommendations for integrating a trauma-informed standard of care with current system practices to promote the health and safety of system participants; and
• Expands certain procedural protections for system participants with mental or behavioral health conditions or intellectual and developmental disabilities.(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)