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Well, she's unpleasant.

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She's unpleasant.

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She's unpleasant to travel with.

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Well, sometimes the dog behaves the way the owner.

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Well, I have often wondered if she's just a reflection of me.

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But that aside.

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Welcome to County Connection, the official podcast of the Washington

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State Association of Counties, where we dive into the legislative issues

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shaping the future of our communities from budgets to public safety,

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infrastructure to elections will break down what's happening in Olympia

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and how it impacts counties from across the Evergreen State.

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Stay informed, stay engaged, and join us as we amplify

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the voice of Washington's 39 counties.

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Welcome back, everybody, to episode four of the County Connection podcast.

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I'm Paul Jewell, your host and government relations director

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for the Washington State Association of Counties.

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It's Friday. It's a big day at the legislature.

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A good day. It's a good day.

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And we've got one of our best here in the studio.

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Very kind of you, Brad Banks.

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How's it going? I'm doing well, Paul. How are you? Good.

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I didn't mean to cut off your intro there, but we all just are filled

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with a little joy here. It's the exuberance.

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It is. It's getting the best of me.

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Happy policy cutoff day. Likewise.

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Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Here's here's hoping.

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Yeah. If we had if we had whiskey right now, we'd be clinking.

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Yeah, we'd be definitely there'd be some ice on the cheers.

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Microphones here. Yeah, I totally agree.

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I totally agree. Well, it's a big day for everybody.

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It is legislature. It's a big day.

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Certainly. I've been watching a lot of bills.

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I know you've been watching a lot of bills.

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We both got out of a hearing.

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We did. We just a few minutes ago.

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We did. I got out earlier. Yeah, you did.

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I wasn't sure how that was going to play out, but I'm glad I won.

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I got I had the last bill.

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Of course you did see. And that usually is me.

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I feel like they see me coming, though.

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Well, maybe so maybe they like you just a little less than they like me.

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Maybe my bill was right in the middle of the agenda.

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She kind of bounced around, though.

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I know. I think it's because she saw me coming and she said, there's Jule.

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He's got nowhere to be.

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I'm sure this is the bill he wants to testify on.

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I'm putting that thing right at the end. Yeah.

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So two hour hearing and I've got to wait all the way through it.

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When I was I was I mean, so I was, you know, I was getting a little fidgety.

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You were I think I texted you. I was getting a little fidgety.

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I was watching. Yeah, I know. I was getting a little fidgety.

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I won't even tell people what you put on my text.

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No, no, it was it was all it was all nothing, nothing profane.

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Really? Maybe a little.

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There are a few initials. There were some initials.

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Yeah, no. But yes, no.

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So I was pleased when not only because I had two bills that I'd testify on.

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Right. Yeah. Both were they were kind of similar local option bills.

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But I was pleased because I have a tendency to sign in like just before the hearing.

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That's kind of my M.O.

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And I don't know why I do that, but it's it's maybe it's a psychological thing.

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But I think you're in denial until it could be right.

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It's like I don't really have to go do this.

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But then I'm like, yeah, I need to go do this.

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Yeah. So I end up getting called last because I'm on.

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So but today you were first in every panel.

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They just called me right up. I was like, this is fantastic.

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I was like, did he got some goodwill in this?

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Is he slipping the chair?

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So I don't know. I know.

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I maybe I need to give him a little thank you note.

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It was nice of him. Friday.

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Well, you did a fine job.

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Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

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I didn't stay to listen to you, but I'm sure you are.

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I'm sure you did a fine job as well.

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I have no doubt.

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Thank you for the non-compliment.

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I appreciate that.

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So what are we here to talk about today, Brad?

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We're here to talk juvenile rehabilitation today.

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Oh, OK. Something we haven't talked about yet on the podcast.

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Yeah, no. I mean, we've touched on on sort of, you know, broader public safety

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and criminal justice issues, but but this is one that, you know, is,

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I think really was like, it's found itself at the center of lately.

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Yeah. Well, we had a big kind of issue this past summer.

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That's right. Then DCYF, the Department of Children, Youth and Families,

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director Ross Hunter, decided to, you know, basically make a unilateral decision

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and suspend all further transfers from counties

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into their juvenile rehabilitation facilities at the state level.

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Yeah. We hold, you know, counties are responsible for making the arrest

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along with cities, and then we hold the juveniles until essentially they're

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arraigned, right? That's right.

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And then it's our responsibility to send them on to the state

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because we don't have the same facilities that the state has.

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And so that was a really big deal this summer.

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It was huge. I mean, it was a decision, right?

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So it was July, I guess, of 24 when when this decision was made.

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And, you know, there wasn't any consultation, right, with us in that.

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And so I think it really caught us off guard and put us in a

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put us in a really sticky wicket, kind of right out of the gate.

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You know, I think there was, you know, I think when we looked at it,

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there was some understanding of maybe why this had happened.

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I think where the counties were sort of, I mean, understanding the reasoning.

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What we didn't understand is the fact of why they hadn't planned for it.

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Right. I mean, we should have seen this coming. Right.

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Yeah, there were definitely reasons behind it.

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100 percent. We're not saying there weren't reasons.

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We're not even saying the reasons were bad reasons or good reasons.

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We're just saying, look, we don't have we weren't consulted.

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We didn't know this was happening.

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You didn't plan properly for it, probably. Right.

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And if you're just going to if you're just going to pause intakes without any

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with, you know, and leave everybody kind of in the lurch, not to mention the folks,

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you know, the the young adults and youth who are in these facilities.

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Right. Sort of being there.

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Right. They're caught up in this.

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Right. Ultimately, and trying to get them into the right place

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was really the most important thing.

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So, yeah, it was it was a mess. Right.

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And and Wasack, you know, chose at that point to take legal action.

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Yes, we did. And and file a lawsuit with some co-adjoining counties.

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Right. To sort of try to get this unstuck.

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I think that got I mean, I think there was some agreement reached pretty quick.

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It was by August or so, I think that it was like, OK, we're going to rescind

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the the the pause and allow these these intakes to continue to move back and forth,

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which was great. But it but it also didn't solve the the underlying problem of

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they're they're massively overcrowded.

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Yeah. What happened was the governor's office reached out to us directly.

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When we filed the suit and this was just I think when just when you were actually

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coming on board. Yeah, I was just caught like right at the end of that.

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Yeah. And so I was I was kind of handling this.

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Yes. Definitely not my policy area.

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But it was I think maybe that was the only reason you brought me on.

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You could immediately just transfer it to me.

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Well, don't think that that wasn't part of the decision tree.

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That's for sure.

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Because this thing just dropped into my lap.

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No, I have never worked juvenile rehabilitation.

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And it's really a complicated issue on top of that.

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Super complicated. Yeah.

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And what happened was, you know, basically we filed the suit, like you said,

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tried to basically get the courts to say, no state, you must continue these intakes.

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Right. And the governor's office reached out to us almost immediately.

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We were able to come to an agreement around, you know, what the state was going to do.

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They were able to stop the order from from then director Hunter

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and basically started allowing intakes again at the state facilities.

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But we never it wasn't a settlement.

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Right. So we never we never really dropped our law.

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Right. Still there. It's still kind of hanging out there.

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And that's kind of the situation.

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Well, that is the situation that everyone's really operating under right now.

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And since then, we've had all kinds of discussions with DCYF.

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For sure. You're taking the lead again.

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But I've been involved in some of those just getting updates from them on kind of

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the progress they're making around facilities and addressing the issues that were

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really the root cause that led to that order to begin with.

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Yeah. And I think and I do think it's important to note they they really have,

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I think, tried to step up and be great partners as we go forward here to try to

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to hear us hear the concerns, also try to be as proactive as possible.

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I mean, I think they've they've gone out of their way to keep us updated, right.

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To reach out and say, hey, we've got new, you know, we've got new

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we've got new numbers we want to share.

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We've got new breakdown data that kind of give you a sense of how this is all

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looking. So, yeah, I mean, and there's been a lot of collaboration, I think,

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and coordination in terms of how we've been responding to where the legislature

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is is trying to find its footing in this space and how they're trying to solve

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potentially try to solve this issue.

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I think the challenge that we're that we're in right now is because they hadn't

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looked at this earlier and tried to address this earlier and try to mitigate

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some of the factors that I think they they should have known were coming down

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the pike, right, that now we're sort of

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caught up, right. It's like even even if there's resources and and and helpful

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legislation this session, it's probably going to take a while for that to to

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show effect.

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So one of the things that led to this, Brad, that we should probably talk about

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just really briefly as part of the history of this before we kind of get into

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maybe some of the new proposals.

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Sure. I assume that's where you're going.

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Yeah.

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You know, one of the key drivers behind this issue was overcrowding at the state

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facilities. And a lot of that was driven by a change the legislature made several

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years ago called J.R. to 25, right?

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Yeah.

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Twenty eighteen, they passed that legislation.

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And can you explain to people what that what that legislation was and what the

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effect was?

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Yeah. So basically what it did was it expanded out even for folks adjudicated

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in what we'd say adult court, for example, right?

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If you were at whether you were a juvenile all the way up to age 25, you

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were eligible for placement in one of these juvenile facilities or one of these

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J.R. facilities, whether that was Green Hill School or Echo Glen.

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And that depended whether where you went, where you go to either of those places

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depends on sort of your age and sex. Right.

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But by expanding out that from 21 to 25, you pull in a whole bunch of new folks

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who all of a sudden and, you know, and potentially a lot of them adults, right?

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Pulling a lot of new folks that then are essentially routed to this part of the

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system that it wasn't really built to account for.

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And so over the years since 2018, those numbers just kept piling up because we

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had older and older.

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That's right.

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Residents of these J.R.

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facilities. That's right.

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Wouldn't have qualified before.

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They would have just either stayed in a county jail or gone to some other state

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corrections. So they were able to go and stay in these facilities and get

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services like juveniles would get right up until the age of 25.

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That's right.

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That there I know that there's a whole lot of you know, what ifs and in this

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situation and that's and we don't have to get into all those details.

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But I think when you take that and then you compound by the fact that this all

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happened. So right. That that bill passed in 2018.

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And then we were faced with the pandemic pretty shortly after that, which created

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a pretty tremendous case backlog with the courts.

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And so you had a lot of youth sort of just churning in one place.

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And so then after the pandemic sort of wound down, as they were working through

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that backlog, there was sort of a flood, an additional flood of these folks in

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this in this, you know, J.R.

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to 20. So you had a bunch of pending court.

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Right. You had a bunch of these. Right.

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And so that combined with everything, it just created this push.

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Right. It was essentially a tsunami of folks that you had already had a highly

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you had an elevated population of J.R.

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25. And then you had this almost like this bottleneck finally broke.

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That's right. And you had other youth that were waiting to be sentenced,

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essentially got through the system finally.

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And so they had a flood of additional residents and it just overwhelms.

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That's right. And I think actually and I think maybe the third

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the third unfortunate leg of the stool was that we've seen an uptick in

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juvenile crime, unfortunately, right, that we've just seen and seen an increase

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in that statistics across the right.

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It's one of the areas that's sort of rising the most, which is alarming

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for a lot of reasons. But so, yeah, so I think when you take those

234
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those three sort of very distinct sort of maybe in independent issues,

235
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but when they all sort of got conflated into one, you know, sort of one set

236
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of circumstances, it just created it just overwhelmed the system quickly.

237
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OK. And that's where we found ourselves in the.

238
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That's right. That's right.

239
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And so since then, like we said, we'd filed the lawsuit.

240
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That resulted in an agreement.

241
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The lawsuit didn't move forward, but it's hanging out there.

242
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And now here we are in the legislative session.

243
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And it looks like you've got some.

244
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Are there some new proposals that are there?

245
00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:45,040
Are I mean, I think so.

246
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I think everybody's trying to grapple with how to do this, right.

247
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And they're also trying to grapple with it in light of the fact that we now have

248
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a different budget situation than we've had over the past several years.

249
00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:55,760
So, again, the yet another sort of strike

250
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in terms of trying to make this, you know, workable. Right.

251
00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:03,160
So, yeah, I mean, I think that the House and the Senate are taking

252
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sort of different approaches to where they'd like to go with this.

253
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We like components of each.

254
00:12:09,760 --> 00:12:11,800
Right. I think maybe to some degree,

255
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I think probably at this moment, leaning more towards where the House is

256
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:17,560
wanting to go and some of the solutions that they're offering up,

257
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which we think makes sense and in fact, directly, I think, try to get to some

258
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of the some of those factors that we just discussed as to why this population

259
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got the way it got to the where it is.

260
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But regardless of whatever comes out of this legislative session,

261
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while there we hope there could be improvements, it's going to take time,

262
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I think, for for this to get resolved.

263
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It's not like something, you know, if they adjourn at the end of April,

264
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it's not like when this law goes effect in July, it's like everything's

265
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going to be hunky dory.

266
00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:45,240
Well, yeah, I mean, one of the things that they really are,

267
00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:50,000
I'm sure thinking about is, you know, do we need bigger facilities?

268
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100 percent. I mean, you know, and they're going to.

269
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I mean, just flat out. And how big? Right.

270
00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:56,920
And so have they and where have they even done the studies?

271
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Have they even done the location, signing kind of an analysis?

272
00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:03,400
And you mentioned, of course, the budget situation that we're in right now.

273
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How are they going to afford to make those investments? Right.

274
00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:08,440
That's right. Planning for this type of facility, you know, has to take years

275
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before you even break ground.

276
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:13,480
And then it's not the type of facility this gets thrown up in six months.

277
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,760
This probably takes a year or more of construction time for sure.

278
00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:19,120
And siting, I mean, all of the components that go into.

279
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We're really years away. We are. Right. We are.

280
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And and and I think, right, the the pressure is that these other factors,

281
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I mean, apart if you take sort of the pandemic piece out of it,

282
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but the other factors are still there. Right.

283
00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:32,440
I mean, we still have this law that extended to 25.

284
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:36,280
And we've we've got this continued increase in youth and youth crime. Right.

285
00:13:36,280 --> 00:13:39,240
And so, you know, addressing those are going to be important.

286
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:41,520
And I think, in fact, maybe if we want to segue in, right, I mean,

287
00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:45,920
I think one of the approaches the House is trying to take in their bill 1917,

288
00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:49,080
which is a representative Callen bill,

289
00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:51,240
it actually tries to address a few of these.

290
00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,800
So the first thing they want to do is is really direct DCYF

291
00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:57,840
to go back and look at what rules need to be put in place

292
00:13:57,840 --> 00:13:59,960
so that these facilities can operate safely. Right.

293
00:13:59,960 --> 00:14:03,720
Because I think one of the I think what's what spook DCYF

294
00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:07,640
and Secretary Hunter when this initially happened was, wow,

295
00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:09,120
we've got this massive overcrowding.

296
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:11,200
Is this safe? Is this, you know, is this dangerous?

297
00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:14,280
Whatever. Unfortunately, the effect of of stopping intakes was then

298
00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:17,480
you create that same problem at the local level. Right.

299
00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:20,320
We've got all these folks who shouldn't be in, you know, especially

300
00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:22,080
our the younger individuals.

301
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:24,200
We don't want them churning in a county jail. Right.

302
00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:27,240
We need to or even, you know, we need them in better facilities. Right.

303
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:29,720
So it just one didn't solve the other. Right.

304
00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:33,760
Well, these Jr facilities are are, you know, they're designed to provide

305
00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:39,080
educational opportunities, right, both traditional and vocational

306
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:40,200
and things like that.

307
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:42,760
There's rehabilitation.

308
00:14:42,760 --> 00:14:47,160
There's treatment facilities built into these facilities as well.

309
00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:49,880
And your county juvenile facilities don't typically have that

310
00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:52,160
because they're supposed to be temporary. That's right.

311
00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:54,600
That's right. They are more just holding, you know, they're sort of

312
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:56,880
transitional places, right, where these folks go.

313
00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:00,240
The other issue that they were dealing with that we didn't touch on

314
00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:05,160
that was a function of the overpopulation and the Jr to 25 back in the summer

315
00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:07,960
was really security. That's right.

316
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:12,040
And what they what what they were finding or what they were seeing

317
00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:14,360
in their facilities was a lot more violence.

318
00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:19,320
And they think that some of that has to do with the fact that there are now older.

319
00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:20,640
That's right.

320
00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:22,600
They're not really juveniles right anymore.

321
00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:27,040
They're older mixing with that with that younger population.

322
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:31,000
And there's a really big difference between an 18 year old and a 25

323
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:34,040
100 percent physically. Yes. Mentally. That's right.

324
00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:35,280
Right. All of that.

325
00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:39,920
And the driving reason behind Jr to 25 was that, look, you know,

326
00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:44,200
cognitively speaking, brain development, especially in males.

327
00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:48,440
But in most younger people, you know, doesn't really mature

328
00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:51,600
until that 25 year old, you know, kind of time frame.

329
00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:55,520
And so trying to give those individuals a little bit more time

330
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:58,640
with the same type of therapy that they would otherwise that they wouldn't get

331
00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:00,480
in corrections. That's right. Right.

332
00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:04,080
In the juvenile facility could help reduce recidivism.

333
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:08,720
But at the same time, an unintended consequence was the mixing of these populations.

334
00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:11,680
Put men that's right with boys. Right.

335
00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:13,760
Which which I mean, that's a very and, you know,

336
00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:17,680
and I can imagine how unsettling that might be, especially if, you know,

337
00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:20,240
I mean, to some of the folks who are in these, especially on the younger side.

338
00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:23,800
Right. I mean, and when you're in this facility, like you said, these are

339
00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:27,160
you use the word rehabilitation and that's what these are designed to be.

340
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:30,000
I mean, I know we want all we want that out of all of our prison system

341
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:31,080
and our jail system.

342
00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:35,320
But the reality is these are specifically designed to provide exactly

343
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:38,400
like you mentioned, educational opportunities, growth development,

344
00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:41,680
you know, job skills, you know, some of the things to really try to take

345
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:44,280
these folks who still have a long life ahead of them, hopefully. Right.

346
00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:48,680
And get them get them squared away and back out and back into the communities

347
00:16:48,680 --> 00:16:52,040
as productive citizens and not back into the system. Right.

348
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:55,880
That's exactly right. And so but when you start mixing these type of populations,

349
00:16:55,880 --> 00:16:59,240
especially of that kind of age range, it's not surprising, I guess,

350
00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:03,200
I would say that we started to see the challenges that and not only just the

351
00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:06,880
wasn't just the behavior we started seeing

352
00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:10,520
an increase in contraband and issues like that as well being coming into these

353
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:12,840
facilities, which hadn't really been as big as well.

354
00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:15,080
When you have that much population, it's harder to manage.

355
00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:17,160
It's exactly right to find those things. Exactly right.

356
00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:21,360
So does this House Bill 1917, you said it, you know, was trying to get at

357
00:17:21,360 --> 00:17:22,760
some of the causes. Right.

358
00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:26,000
So trying to get to some of the wants to do to have DCYF,

359
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:30,040
do some of the rulemaking that it needs to do to figure out sort of what is it?

360
00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:33,560
What kind of sideboards, for lack of a better term, do we need to have in place

361
00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:37,840
so that we can ensure these there's operational safety right in these facilities?

362
00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:41,200
Does address address some of those issues of mixing populations

363
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:42,640
and the different age groups? It does. Yeah.

364
00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:45,720
I mean, and again, it really requires them to take a look at their two.

365
00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:48,200
You know, they've got two primary facilities that I mentioned, right?

366
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:53,400
Green Hill and Echo Glen and kind of figure out what's the right mix between that.

367
00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:56,760
The second thing the bill does, though, is try to address.

368
00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:00,000
Once we get to this, a certain threshold and the bill calls out one hundred

369
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,280
and five percent. So when they're when the census, right, is at one hundred

370
00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:06,120
and five percent of what the capacity ought to be,

371
00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:09,640
it triggers a number of things and it actually triggers for those folks

372
00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:13,040
that were adjudicated in an adult court and have sort of the are either

373
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:16,760
on the older side of things, right, in that 24, 25 range, right,

374
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:18,280
and have long sentences.

375
00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:23,040
It provides an option or a mechanism for those folks to be rerouted back into

376
00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:25,680
prison or jails. OK.

377
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:26,520
What's the community?

378
00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:29,560
What's considered a long sentence for one of these individuals?

379
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:31,560
Well, that's interesting. I don't I actually.

380
00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:34,040
Does it go past the age of 25? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes.

381
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:36,440
So it's actually I think it's yeah.

382
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:37,400
So it's basically right.

383
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,360
If if if if you came in at 21 and your jail sentence

384
00:18:41,360 --> 00:18:44,680
or prison sentence would have been put you out past that age,

385
00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:47,400
I think it's 26 actually is the is the number they use, right?

386
00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:49,640
Put you back past that age 26.

387
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:53,400
OK, then that sort of designates you as a long because inevitably

388
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:55,640
you're going to be going to go back to the state prison system.

389
00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:58,640
And there's no there's no eventuality that you would be out of the system

390
00:18:58,640 --> 00:18:59,920
before then. OK.

391
00:18:59,920 --> 00:19:03,760
So when the population reaches this hundred and five percent,

392
00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:07,480
threshold, yeah, the probably working backwards in age,

393
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,240
those would just be transferred sooner. That's right.

394
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:11,320
OK. Yeah.

395
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:13,920
And then the third thing the bill does actually is go back and

396
00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:16,480
essentially undo parts of J.R.

397
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:21,280
to 25, the legislation we spoke to and reduces the number back to age 21.

398
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:24,960
Oh, so it tries to just get to that directly and just say

399
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:30,080
we're going to discontinue the practice of 21 and older being eligible

400
00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:33,160
for for to be in these facilities and just.

401
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:38,240
Puts them back into that would definitely solve the population issue.

402
00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:41,040
But what would that do to recidivism rates?

403
00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:42,360
Well, right. I mean, I think that right.

404
00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:45,360
I mean, it's sort of like we're sort of doing this, you know,

405
00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:47,600
sort of circular thing, right, where it's like the whole reason

406
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,360
we went to that in the first place was because of the arguments,

407
00:19:50,360 --> 00:19:53,040
which I think most people agreed with, right, that the developmentally,

408
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:57,840
as you mentioned, and other other factors really would have provided for more

409
00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:01,480
the bettering the odds of these individuals not finding themselves

410
00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:04,560
back in the system, right. But we get them squared away,

411
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:08,480
get them services, skills they need and then back out into the community.

412
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,160
This would certainly pull back on that as an approach.

413
00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:14,840
But I think also trying that I think with the legislature is at least

414
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:17,400
in this particular House bill is looking to do is that they've got a practical

415
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:19,000
issue they've got to deal with. Right.

416
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,120
Well, right. But I mean, down the road, though, if you're thinking,

417
00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:25,040
I mean, that could get to increase long term costs.

418
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:26,040
100 percent.

419
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:30,480
Do we have good data on the success of J.R. to 25?

420
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:34,920
Yeah. With the years that it's been in place now, have we shown

421
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,760
that it's more successful? Have we shown that it's, you know,

422
00:20:37,760 --> 00:20:41,200
that kind of upstream cost savings, you know, that upstream investment

423
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:45,720
that results in a lot of downstream cost savings or do we not know that yet?

424
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:47,720
I mean, I don't know that we can say that definitively, right.

425
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:49,120
I mean, I think we've seen it.

426
00:20:49,120 --> 00:20:54,400
I definitely think there is data to show that your chances of recidivism

427
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:57,320
go down, right, if you've received these kind of services.

428
00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:01,520
But I don't know that it's I don't know that we can say that it's at the levels,

429
00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,680
right, that really would show a significant impact.

430
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,000
Does that make sense?

431
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:09,640
Well, I mean, I'd imagine you'd have to have several years of data to really

432
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:12,600
you would. Right. And by the time that was up and running, we've only,

433
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:15,400
you know, kind of and again, how do you do that without all these other

434
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:17,200
mitigating factors that we've talked about? Right.

435
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:20,360
We had a pandemic and then we had this weird uptick in youth crime.

436
00:21:20,360 --> 00:21:23,920
So, I mean, it sort of skews this right in terms of trying to figure out

437
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,200
from a pure data standpoint, how you look at this.

438
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:27,800
OK, that's interesting.

439
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:32,160
So this bill tries to get at some of those core kind of issues

440
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:34,840
that drove the problem right in with.

441
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:37,080
But it actually kind of unravels.

442
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,160
It could potentially do that. Interesting. OK. Yeah.

443
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,880
So how do how do we kind of feel about this as counties?

444
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:44,040
What's our interest here? Yeah.

445
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:47,480
I mean, I think our interest is obviously not trying to go back to

446
00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:51,400
what led to the problems in in July of last year. Right.

447
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:52,800
We don't want to go back to that.

448
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,800
But I think at the same time, recognizing what what

449
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,040
what is available at the county level, right?

450
00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:01,440
What type of services and facilities are available at the county level

451
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:05,760
that could help potentially take on some of this additional capacity.

452
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,880
What would contracting arrangements look like? Right.

453
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:13,680
Between between DCYF and counties that were wanting to make space available.

454
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:18,240
Would would those spaces be ready to take on this type of population?

455
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:20,640
So like we talked about, these are specialized facilities. Right.

456
00:22:21,360 --> 00:22:25,240
So I think those are things we still want to we still would like to explore

457
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:29,240
with the legislature in terms of of, you know, what are the options locally

458
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:32,960
in this space and how can how can counties if we're going to go back

459
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:38,040
to keeping more of those individuals at our level, how are we able to move them

460
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:41,800
into other places that are better for them while still ensuring we've got

461
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:45,280
if we need to send folks into us into a state facility that we can do that?

462
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:47,640
Well, Brad, that's really interesting stuff.

463
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:52,000
It'll be I'll be excited to see how the legislature handles that moving forward

464
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:56,600
and whether or not they kind of remember, you know, what happened before.

465
00:22:56,600 --> 00:23:01,160
Yeah. As they're putting new policies together to try to address this moving forward.

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Thanks for coming by.

467
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:05,840
I hope we can talk about this again soon. My pleasure. Thanks a lot, Paul.

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00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:09,240
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