JACKSON - A bill that aims to overhaul the state's system for handling youthful offenders overcame its first hurdle on Thursday, but not without opposition.
The bill, introduced by Juvenile Justice Committee Chairman George Flaggs Jr., would remove oversight of the state's training schools from the Department of Human Services and create a separate Department of Juvenile Justice to take over the responsibility.
It also seeks to cap the number of young people incarcerated at the training schools in Raymond and Columbia and establish a network of community-based programs as alternatives to the state facilities.
Some lawmakers questioned the bill's cost and whether it was premature as Mississippi is trying to settle a federal lawsuit over alleged abuse at the training schools.
Rep. Margaret Ellis Rogers, D-New Albany, said the state's funds are limited. She asked Flaggs to provide details about the cost of the bill.
"I'm amenable to working out a process to reduce the costs, but at the same time be cost-effective and reach the needs of the children," Flaggs said after the meeting.
Rep. Mark Baker, R-Brandon, tried to kill the bill, but his motion was defeated. Baker said lawmakers shouldn't act until they receive a report in October from legal experts hired to make recommendations to address the federal complaint.
"This bill is the proverbial cart before the horse," Baker said. "It's the chairman's way to resolve litigation and he doesn't even have the experts' opinion to back it."
But Reps. Kevin Buck, D-Holly Springs, and John Hines, D-Greenville, said the bill is a good step toward remedying the system's deficiencies.
"I don't think the state ought to sit back and wait for litigation to tell us what we should do. It seems to me to be a backward approach," Buck said.
A 48-page Justice Department report released five months before the December 2003 lawsuit was filed said adolescents at the training schools had been hogtied, shackled to poles, ordered to exercise at odd hours and forced to eat their own vomit when they got sick from the exertion.
Flaggs described the state's current system as "inhumane."
Flaggs said a cost analysis will be attached to the bill when it is debated. He said an amendment that deleted the creation of a uniform youth court system eliminated a large part of the bill's cost.
Youth court judges and social advocates were among those who attended a nearly three-hour meeting Thursday. Clay County Judge Thomas Storey said he's concerned about the occupancy caps the bill places on the training schools.
As of Thursday, the 465-bed Oakley Training School in Raymond held 253 youths. There were 70 at Columbia Training School, which has a capacity of 200. Under the bill, by 2008 Oakley would house no more than 65 boys and Columbia would house no more than 75 girls.
Storey said the caps pose a public safety risk. "You may have a crime spree. In the rural counties, we don't have a place to put the children. If they need to go to the training schools, we need to get them down there," Storey said.
The judges are also pushing for a provision in the bill that would give state funding to the youth courts.
Currently, the state only provides financial assistance to the circuit and chancery courts, said Adams County Judge John Hudson.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
