This post originally appeared as an op-ed in the Interior Journal. By Nathan Goens In an effort to raise awareness about issues that face our communities, I wanted to take a moment to introduce Senate Bill 200, which goes into full effect July 1, 2015. Parts of the Bill have already gone into effect around the Commonwealth. The aim of the Bill is to create a more effective and economically efficient Juvenile Justice System; one that truly places the best interest of the child as a paramount consideration, [...]

July 1, 2015 is a monumental date for Kentucky’s juvenile justice reform. It is when SB200, the juvenile justice reform bill which passed in 2014, goes into full effect.  An unprecedented amount of communication and collaboration has occurred within the past year between the many agencies involved in making this reform a reality. At the May 12th Juvenile Justice Oversight Council meeting, Ryan Thornell, a consultant working with Kentucky from the Crime and Justice Institute, [...]

The Juvenile Justice Oversight Committee met again in March on implementation of juvenile justice reform as a result of SB 200, which passed in 2014. Youth-serving agencies across Kentucky are taking a number of positive steps, and we can expect to see encouraging results in the coming months. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), for example, continues to implement the Family Accountability, Intervention and Response (FAIR) teams. These teams function much like an enhanced [...]