Kansas Youth Congregate Care Bed Facilities

planned

A bill in Kansas proposes to drain grant funding currently used for community-based programs that help kids in the criminal justice system to build new congregate care bed facilities for higher-risk youth. Previous congregate care facilities, called Youth Residential Center II, were group homes for youth with high-risk behavior but had a low success rate in discharging kids to lower-level placements. The new bill aims to increase incarceration time and capacity for youth, while reallocating funds from successful community programs to these new facilities.