Housing juvenile offenders at the local county jail continues to be an issue with jail officials confirming “an incident” recently occurred at the Yazoo County Regional Correctional Facility.
Warden Keith Brown brought the matter to the table during a recent Yazoo County Board of Supervisors meeting.
“We still have some juveniles over there at the facility,” Brown said.
Jerry Williams, jail consultant, said the juvenile offenders were brought back to the county jail for a “temporary hold” due to court appearances and space issues at other facilities.
“And we had an incident,” Williams admits. “We still have the problem where we can’t put them anywhere else. We can call Washington County to see if we can send them there. But it is still an issue with kids over there and having to separate them.”
The issue was heavily discussed among county leaders last month when a 13-year-old juvenile offender was housed at the local county jail for close to five months before being convicted and placed into state custody. Supervisor Joseph Thomas Jr. said he was concerned over the liability that falls on the county, adding that he was concerned about the juveniles’ safety being housed with adult offenders.
But when it comes to housing the offenders at the local juvenile detention center versus the county jail, federal law states that is not an option. During a previous county meeting, Judge Betsy Cotton, with the county youth court, said if she were to accept juveniles charged with adult crimes into the local detention center, the facility would be shut down.
“Any juvenile who is charged with an adult offense who walks into the detention center, they will shut the whole facility down, all of it,” Cotton said. “Then that becomes a different problem because now you have shut down the one and only juvenile detention center that we have here.”
With Brown’s latest report to the county supervisors, the issue of housing juvenile offenders remains an issue.
“It’s not getting any better,” Brown added.
