This Davison County youth diversion program brings a new approach to juvenile justice

The Youth Diversion Office in Mitchell is looking to keep kids out of incarceration with a new kind of program that compliments its existing court diversion resources.

Davison County is one of three counties in South Dakota taking a new approach to keeping juveniles out of detention and the criminal justice system as a whole. As part of its youth diversion program, Davison, Brown and Codington counties are creating Court Resource Homes. There, a licensed foster family will take care of a low-risk juvenile offender for up to a week, so the minor can stay in the community rather than being transferred to a juvenile corrections facility.

While Minnehaha County and Pennington County have juvenile diversion resources, Davison County had to find something that would work for the county and for families, Alicia Odland, who works in the Davison County State’s Attorney Office, said.

“So [we] just had to get creative with creating what works for our community with the limited resources that we had, that would also benefit and do good things with our juveniles in the community,” Odland said.

The idea for better diversion programs was born in 2020 by Katie Buschbach and Odland, who work in the Davison County State’s Attorney Office as Youth Diversion coordinators. As for the court resource home, inspiration was taken from a similar program in rural Oregon.

“We try to keep as many of [the kids] out of the courts altogether starting with the detention alternatives,” Odland said. “And then from there, if we can keep them out, we try to keep them out of the court system when possible.”

In the past three years of the diversion program, Buschbach said it’s had a 95% success rate of juveniles not coming back through the court system. Typically, between 65 to 75 juveniles go through the diversion program.

More: Funding, experience needed for court-appointed criminal defense services in South Dakota

Court Resource Homes take new approaches to juvenile justice

The Court Resource Home program is part of a three-year $20,000 grant from the Council for Juvenile Services, through the South Dakota Department of Corrections. Davison County recently received its second year grant for the program, Buschbach said.

The family picked by the county for the resource home is licensed by the state to be a foster family, Odland explained. From there, a juvenile between the ages of 11 and 15 who is selected for the diversion program and deemed to not be a safety threat can be placed in the home ranging from a night up to a week.

For example, if a juvenile keeps threatening to run away or is caught in a situation where they threw something during a fight when they’re not typically violent, they could be a candidate for the resource home.

More: Study outlines barriers to civil legal service aid in South Dakota

“Those kinds of situations to just give them a break so both parties can cool down and come back together after” having calmed down, Odland said.

Buschbach said over email that with the program, at least 12 kids could be placed in the house per year, based on past reports from kids who would have benefited from the service.

The home keeps low-level juvenile offenders out of the Juvenile Detention Center in Minnehaha County, which is over 70 miles away, and near their communities.

Davison County also utilizes electronic monitoring for juveniles so they can stay at home while waiting for their court hearing.

Diversion program, electronic monitoring cheaper for Davison County than detention center transportation

While the diversion program is keeping Davison County kids out of the juvenile court system, it’s also saving the county money.

John Claggett, the vice chair of the Davison County Commission who has served for 16 years, said the county has saved at least $190,000 by keeping the juveniles out of the court system, calling the savings “the tip of the iceberg.”

Rather than spend money on transporting the juveniles to detention centers in Sioux Falls or even Nebraska, which Claggett said used to happen, and then back to the courthouse for the juvenile’s hearing, Davison County funds the electronic monitoring for the juveniles.

“The electronics really is a game changer from way back when I first started and today, it's about $240 a day, so chunk change,” Claggett said.

He added the long-term benefit of the court resource home and other youth diversion programs is that it keeps juveniles out of the incarceration system, which also saves on county costs from jails to providing competent legal representation.

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, youth who are placed in diversion programs are 45% less likely to reoffend than youth going through a formal court process.

Expansion to the rest of South Dakota hoped for

Claggett said his biggest hope for the court resource home program is that it goes across the state to all communities.

Aberdeen and Watertown are also part of the pilot project.

But Aberdeen has been unable to find a licensed foster family to get the program running, Kelsi Vinger, the diversion program coordinator, said.

More: South Dakota's new parole absconder unit has apprehended more than 200 people in 7 months, DOC says

It’s a similar problem Mitchell has now. While the county was the first to get a licensed foster family for the court resource home in the state and would’ve been actively taking kids for the program, the family has recently moved.

“Now we're back to work and finding another family that will fit for that,” Odland said.

Despite the pause, Odland is still positive the court resource home will work and will fit into the larger picture of diversion resources in Davison County and across the state.

“We're all ready for that because I think that's going to be a huge benefit to the community and to the kids,” she said.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Court resource home in Davison County latest juvenile diversion program