Committee hears that Senate Bill 367 reduced detention but strained foster care and services for ‘crossover’ youth

The House Children and Families Committee heard an informational presentation on the history and child-welfare effects of Senate Bill 367 and related juvenile-justice changes, with officials, juvenile judges and service providers describing gaps in community services and strains on foster placements (meeting date not specified).

Senate Bill 367, enacted after recommendations from the Kansas Juvenile Justice Work Group, limited use of secure detention, required standardized risk-and-needs assessments and set caps on detention and placements. Committee presenters said the reforms reduced secure detention for many low-level offenders but left a smaller group of higher-need or repeat-offending youth with fewer appropriate placement and treatment options.

Natalie Nelson, citing the Kansas Juvenile Justice Work Group final report, told the committee that juvenile arrests fell but out-of-home placements and lengths of stay did not fall at the same rate: “the decline in the out of home population of juvenile offenders was less than half of the decline in the rate of juvenile arrests.” She summarized the work group’s findings that lower-level offenders made up a large share of placements, that community evidence-based services were scarce, and that inconsistent data and the absence of standardized processes produced geographically disparate outcomes.

Natalie Scott of the Revisor of Statutes — who said she drafted the original bill — reviewed central elements of SB 367 and subsequent related legislation. Scott said the law directed that juveniles be returned to parents or guardians unless there was a safety reason not to, limited detention using a juvenile detention risk assessment and capped cumulative detention at 45 days over the life of a juvenile case. She said the law also mandated standardized risk-and-needs scoring for supervision levels and set placement thresholds for the state juvenile correctional facility.

Service providers and child-welfare agencies told the committee those changes exposed shortfalls in services and placements. Lisa Southern, executive director of Compass Behavioral Health, said rural areas have too few options and described children who, because detention is unavailable, are placed in foster care or on long waiting lists for psychiatric residential treatment facilities (PRTFs). "Kids who don't have a place to be that is safe ... frequently elope," she said, adding that foster care and PRTF capacity could be traumatizing or unavailable for some youth.

Tanya Keyes, deputy secretary at the Department for Children and Families (DCF), summarized a 2019 case review (about 700 children) conducted with the Kansas Health Institute and said the cohort of so-called crossover youth differed from the general juvenile offender population: they were more often 16–17 years old, had a higher proportion of females, were more often charged with misdemeanors and property offenses, had higher rates of placement in group care, and experienced more placement moves while in care.

Child welfare providers described operational strains. Crystal Hedrick, CEO of the Children's Alliance of Kansas, said implementation of the reforms outpaced the development of community-based alternatives and that probation officers’ caseloads increased while available local services did not scale quickly enough. Angela Hedrick, vice president of operations for KVC Kansas, described repeated incidents in which youth arrested for violent or destructive conduct were returned to the same foster or residential placement within hours because policy requires custodial agencies to take youth in DCF legal custody back from juvenile intake when possible. "This directly and severely compromises the safety of other youth in DCF custody," she said.

Sedgwick County juvenile presiding Judge Macias told the committee that judges and counties lack middle-ground options between probation and commitment to the juvenile correctional facility. "It's either probation or it's going to be ... KJCC; we don't really have any group homes that we used to have," he said, and urged consideration of alternatives and more flexible detention tools for youths who present escalating violent conduct.

Local contractors and residential providers described workforce and funding pressures. Erica Case, lead attorney for Amber Hope Connections, said providers need better local access to evidence-based cognitive-behavioral and family-centered services and described a new hub team her agency established to focus on placement stability and rapid crisis response. Gina Meyer Hummel, executive director of O'Connell Children's Shelter, said providers have taken on higher-acuity youth without corresponding up-front funding for training, staffing or trauma supports.

Committee staff and witnesses also reviewed bills pending in the Legislature that would change detention and placement authority. Staff summarized House Bill 23 25 as proposing, among other things, longer minimum and maximum placements for juveniles alleged to have used a firearm (raising the minimum for firearm-related placements from six months to 12 months and the maximum from 18 months to 36 months in one section), expanding what counts as a probation violation to include technical violations, and raising the cumulative detention cap from 45 to 90 days. House Bill 23 29, as described to the committee, would direct the Department of Corrections to ensure timely placement in youth residential facilities, allow the secretary to contract for a minimum of 40 beds (with additional contracting authority), and authorize up to $10 million in fiscal-year contracting to support youth residential placements.

The meeting was informational; no bills were taken up for amendment or vote. Committee members asked staff and agency witnesses to provide additional budget and fund-balance details for the evidence-based programs account; staff indicated a budget bill (as amended in committee) included roughly $13 million in the account in a cited section. Minutes and written materials were to be distributed after the hearing.

What happened: Presenters told members that SB 367 achieved its goal of reducing detention for many youth but that the state still lacks consistent, accessible community-based treatment and placement capacity for a smaller population of higher-need or repeat-offending crossover youth. Providers and the presiding juvenile judge urged targeted investments in evidence-based services, more placement options designed for high-risk youth, clearer expectations for courts and law enforcement, and better data and oversight to track whether reinvested savings are producing results.

What’s next: Committee members were briefed on two bills that would expand detention and placement authority; proponents at the hearing argued that those changes would give judges and officials additional tools to protect public safety and stabilize placements when community services are unavailable. The committee did not take action during the informational session; staff will provide follow-up materials and fund-balance figures for members to review.