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Executive Order Calls For Public Health Approach to Juvenile Justice (Seattle, WA) [TheStranger.com]

 

King County Executive Dow Constantine this morning announced an executive order to place juvenile justice under the purview of the public health department. He unveiled the plan at a press conference with Seattle Mayor Tim Burgess, King County department leaders, and advocates for alternatives to youth detention.

The executive order directs County departments to come up with “a plan and timeline to restructure juvenile detention” under the oversight and direction of Seattle and King County’s shared public health department. What this approach will look like in practice will depend on the results of a report and proposal from Seattle and King County Public Health by February 15.



“By using a public health model, we will be able to do more for kids,” said Executive Constantine, adding that the County must do more than just provide services for youth in detention. “It has to be about changing policies and systems that keep youth from returning to detention, or prevent them from becoming involved in the justice system in the first place.”

The goal, Constantine said, is “that detention is just a single necessary element of the broader question of how do we get this kid back on track while keeping the community safe, rather than having detention be the leading item, and then having other things be incidental to the detention.”

Seattle and King County’s shift in focus to public health is unique in the nation, Mayor Burgess said. “As best we can tell, this is the first jurisdiction in the United States that has said we are going to purposefully look at this issue through the public health lens.”

To continue reading this article by Chetanya Robinson, go to:

http://www.thestranger.com/slo...-to-juvenile-justice

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