REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION

RESOLUTION: 2002-44

SUBJECT: Intergovernmental Agreement for the Juvenile Assessment Center

ADDRESS: Jefferson County Juvenile Assessment Center
1200 Johnson Road
Golden, Colorado 80401

RECOMMENDATION: Mayor and City Council authorize an amendment to the intergovernmental agreement for the Juvenile Assessment Center.

FUNDING SOURCE: Funds for Lakewood's contribution to the Center are currently budgeted in the police department's budget.

SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND OF SUBJECT MATTER:

The Juvenile Assessment Center (the Center) is a facility that provides a centralized location for the coordinated provision of mental health and other intervention programs and services for juveniles and their families who are referred to the Center by local governments. The Center addresses the problems of fragmentation of juvenile services, as well as the lack of centralized information on juveniles' contacts with law enforcement, the juvenile justice system, human services, and school officials.

The Center provides the following functions:

1. Conducts complete assessments of the needs of the juveniles and their families;

2. Makes prompt referrals of juveniles and their families to appropriate community services aimed at preventing delinquent and further delinquent behavior;

3. Provides crisis intervention utilizing a case management process to evaluate the progress of the intervention;

4. Coordinates and centralizes the information collected by individual agencies;

5. Improves decision making concerning arrest, incarceration, intervention, and consequences for juveniles, and

6. Reduces the involvement of juveniles in the criminal justice system.

Lakewood Police utilize the Center when a juvenile is in custody. The Center provides great timesaving by allowing the patrol agent to return to the street and leave the juvenile at the Center. Status offenders and juveniles who are not appropriate for placement at a detention facility are temporarily detained at the Center. The Center keeps a juvenile for a number of hours while placement decisions are being made and parents are contacted.

The County of Jefferson, Jefferson Center for Mental Health, the City of Arvada, the City of Golden, the City of Lakewood, the City of Westminster, the City of Wheat Ridge, and the City of Edgewater entered into an intergovernmental agreement in 1998 for funding and operating the Center which was then acting under the auspices of the Jefferson Center for Mental Health. Additionally, in-kind contributions were provided by the District Attorney, the Jefferson County Division of Human Services, and R-1 Schools. Subsequently, in 2000, these parties entered into a new intergovernmental agreement, which created a legal entity with its own governing board to provide the services previously provided by Mental Health.

The parties now seek to amend this intergovernmental agreement to add a representative of the Chief Judge of the First Judicial District Court, the Chief Probation Officer of the First Judicial District, and the Director of the Central Region of the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections as directors to serve on the Juvenile Assessment Center Board. The Colorado Children's Code allows for the creation of a local "juvenile service planning committee" appointed by the Chief Judge of a judicial district. The Chief Judge of the First Judicial District assigned on September 7, 2001, in Chief Judge's Order number 2001-2, the responsibilities of the of the juvenile services planning committee to the Juvenile Assessment Center Board. The proposed amendment to the intergovernmental agreements implements this judicial order.

RESOLUTION ADOPTION DATE: July 8, 2002

ORIGINATED BY: Ronald R. Burns, Chief of Police

STAFF PERSON RESPONSIBLE: Clarene Shelley, Division Chief, 303-987-7300

DOCUMENTS ATTACHED: Resolution 2002-44

SUBMITTED BY:
Ronald R. Burns, Chief of Police, Lakewood Police Department

REVIEWED BY:
Joni Inman, Director Mayor and City Manager's Office
Michael J. Rock, City Manager