The Kansas juvenile justice system is like a festering wound, said an activist saddened by lawmakers’ lack of action to help at-risk children and youths.
Incarcerating young Kansans is more costly and inhumane than providing community services, education and mentoring to keep them out of the juvenile justice system, according to a new report by a nonprofit pushing the state to shutter its last juvenile prison.
An organization working to reform the Kansas juvenile justice system called for an end to incarceration of youth after a 17-year-old boy died at the Sedgwick County intake facility.