from LinkNKY

A juvenile justice bill cleared the House floor Tuesday, but only after an amendment added by a Northern Kentucky legislator was included — a key mental health component to the bill that will allow detained juveniles to access care while in custody.

Rep. Kim Moser (R-Taylor Mill) added the amendment to House Bill 3, which will see Kentucky’s Justice and Public Safety Cabinet enter into a contract with a behavioral health service organization tasked with providing mental health treatment for detained youths.

“I wanted to make sure that we put in a framework for behavioral health therapy, mental health treatment,” Moser said while presenting the bill in the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee earlier in the day.

The bill will also require that detained youths receive examination for behavioral or substance youth disorders and then receive the proper treatment.

“It’s critical when we are dealing with the justice system that we address any mental health or substance use disorders and treat it immediately,” Moser said.

Moser said she added the amendment to the bill, primarily sponsored by Rep. Kevin Bratcher (R-Louisville), because it allows the courts to have a positive impact instead of being strictly punitive.

Moser’s amendment is just one part of a bill to tackle issues in the juvenile justice system. Bratcher’s bill will chiefly renovate and open a juvenile facility in Louisville that comes with a $17 million price tag — the bill previously totaled $8.9 million.

Further, the bill would automatically detain youths charged with serious felonious crimes — murder or robbery — for 48 hours while they wait for a hearing.

Another aspect of the bill would allow the records of those youths to be accessed for three years, which is something opponents say would cause harm to kids trying to get their lives back on track.

The records would be closed after three years if the juvenile didn’t commit another crime.

Marcie Timmerman, executive director of the Kentucky chapter of Mental Health America, said she liked Moser’s mental health addition to the bill but had issues with the open records portion of the legislation.

“I’ve gotten reports of children who have had a crime been admitted to the facility without any kind of check-in to make sure that they don’t have active substance use or an active mental part of their crime,” Timmerman said.

However, if a youth’s records are accessible in a three-year time frame, it could also expose their mental health record.

“Anytime we give people the sight of a child’s worst day, even if they’re a teenager, their brains are still developing,” Timmerman said. “These people are not making decisions like you and I, as adults, are doing.”

Timmerman said she thinks the records portion of the bill is unnecessary and that the records should be closed and only accessible by school officials and the appropriate authorities.

Speaking on the House floor, Bratcher said the records portion of the bill is due to concern from the business community.