SENATE BILL NO. 289 "An Act relating to runaway minors and their families or legal custodians." Senator Frank spoke briefly on behalf of the bill. He said they had heard from constituents regarding what happened when a juvenile ran away from a shelter. This bill currently has a provision in it allowing an officer to pick the child up, take them into custody and get them before a judge within 48 hours so the judge can decide if the child is in need of aid or a delinquent minor. At any time during that time the child's parents can pick them up. It has a temporary detention feature. It is overwhelming the lack of a solution to the existing problem. There is no loss of real liberty in a constitutional sense. There is a constitutional question with the severability clause in the statutes. If this is stuck down through a Court case there will still be the remaining parts of the bill and it is not the intent to deny juveniles of their liberty. There is a huge problem in a small part of the population. It is incumbent upon us to formulate a way that is reasonable that gets attention to the problem. A new findings and purposes section has been submitted as amendment #1. Allison Gordon, staff aide to Senator Frank was invited to join the committee. She advised that the correct amendment without objection it was adopted. Ms. Gordon further explained amendment #M.3. It will create a new subsection (g) under AS 47.10.141 which makes it a violation for a runaway who has been taken by a police officer to a semi- secure facility to leave that place without the permission of the minor's legal custodian or from an appropriate employee of the semi-secure facility. If a minor violates this statute then the shelter must immediately notify the department, the nearest law enforcement agency and the parents of the minor's absence. Law enforcement will then be allowed to pick up a runaway that has left the semi- secure facility and temporarily detain the runaway pending a detention hearing within 48 hours. If there are no reasons for detaining the minor, such as child-in-need-of-aid or delinquency petitions, based on violating other laws, the minor would be released to the legal custodian at the detention hearing. At any time during the proceedings the minor, barring abuse cases, has the option to go home. Senator Frank explained that amendment M.4 was the findings and purposes section and M.3 was the substantiative amendment. Senator Halford indicated that M.4 was amendment Becky Snow, Department of Law, Fairbanks testified via teleconference. The department was concerned with the proposed amendment because there was no language that provides the child that the child could get out of detention by deciding to go home. With regards to the statement of Senator Frank that the period of detention provided for by the amendment is very limited on page 2, line 8 and 9, that is an amendment to what is now the temporary detention statute that now applies only to juveniles arrested or detained for committing delinquent behaviour. It provides right now that if the Court finds probable cause the Court can determine to detain the minor based on certain additional findings. This amendment provides that if the Court finds probable cause at the temporary detention hearing the runaway minor could be detained pending the hearing on the delinquency or child-in-need-of-aid petition. That can be a substantial period of time. Even it if is a child-in-need-of-aid petition, particularly the larger jurisdictions like Anchorage, months before the petition for adjudication is brought on for the adjudication trial. That was a matter of considerable concern, especially if no criminal conduct is being alleged. Usually criminal conduct is the only constitutional basis for depriving a person of their freedom to move about. The other concern is tacking the remedy for the very frustrating pattern of runaway behaviour on to the delinquency statute creating an inconsistency in the way each runaway will be treated as compared to runaways handled AS 47.10.141, where a police officer may take a minor into emergency, protective custody under AS 47.10.141 when certain conditions have been met, and then have to bring the minor before the court within 24 hours. There may well be an equal protection problem created by this inconsistency in the handling of runaways. None of them are being charged with any criminal conduct. Co-chairman Halford inquired of Ms. Gordon if there was a citation that showed where the minor could go home and she advised it was on page 2, line 26 of the amendment. Ms. Snow said that it was not a reference to a detention facility and once a minor was taken to a detention facility they were no longer in charge of getting out. The operators of the facility make that determination. The use of "facility" is a facility for housing runaway children and it does not automatically include detention facility. The language on page 22, line 26 is meant to give the minor control over whether they get out of the detention facility and that raises an ambiguity as to the meaning of "facility" in the bill itself. Senator Frank explained that he wanted the parents or legal guardian of the child to be able to pick up the child so that it was not up to the child as much as it was up to the parents to come and retrieve the child. Ms. Snow said that the bill would amend AS 47.10.141 to give the power to the parents or legal custodian to determine whether the minor is brought back to the legal custodian's residence or where the minor is taken. That would be consistent. Senator Frank said that was what he had intended. There should not be a situation where the juvenile is in the detention center for several hours and the parents cannot go and pick them up. If they are ready to reconcile and the child is ready to go home it seems that the parents should be able to go pick the child up and take them home. Senator Rieger said he felt the amendment was exactly what needed to be accomplished and the objections raised were incorrect. He referred to page 3 of amendment #2 and it explained that one cannot leave a semi-secure facility except with permission of the minor's legal custodian or if one leaves without permission but goes straight home. It is only required at the bottom of page 2 that the minor be advised of the rules. There are two types of runaways; an abusive situation at home and they are going to stay because what they want is a safe place; and runaways because they want to be runaways. Those are the ones that can be picked up if they leave that safe place. The amendment is exactly what we want to achieve. Becky Snow advised that she had no further testimony and there were no further questions by committee members. Senator Frank did request that she write down her concerns. He also requested suggestions to make this amendment work within the parameters of the constitution. He stated that it was understood that an individual was not to be deprived of their liberty without due process or having committed a crime. Diane Worley, Director Division of Family and Youth Services was invited to join the committee. She said the Division supported the first version of the bill and did have some concerns with amendment #2. The big issues that they were faced with included the state detention facilities that were extremely overburdened at the time. It is overwhelming to think of adding juveniles to the system now. As an example she stated the Johnson Youth Center had a capacity for 8 beds but was running between 15 and 16 children per day. That is double capacity. The other major concern was mandatory detainment. There are detention standards once a youth has been picked up but no mandatory detainment at this point. With the current overcrowding this would mean releasing other delinquents that are not mandatorily detained in order to have space to detain the runaways. Another issue was the majority of runaways were not criminals and should they be housed in detention facilities with the juvenile delinquents who are in for rape, drugs, weapons and assault. What will be done with a mandatory detainment in communities where there is no detention facility? A child-in-need-of-aid should not be put in a locked facility. The child needs protection, not locking up. It was feared that in this situation the secured facility would become a revolving door. The juveniles would be in an out, back at home, and back in again to the overcrowded facilities. The last point made was that currently there was a zero fiscal note, but this amendment would constitute a considerable fiscal note. By detaining runaways who are not delinquents and in particular those who are children-in-need-of-aid the department would lose their federal funding which is approximately $600,000. This would cause the elimination of about 30 statewide programs being funded with this money. Senator Frank said that the situation was frustrating. Those running away from a legitimate abuse situation would not be likely to run away from a semi-secured facility and they would not be the revolving door situation. Those that do run away from the secured shelter are the only ones that would be placed in the detention facility. If more immediate action could be taken the escalation into criminal behaviour could be eliminated. There is some offsetting benefits from a prevention or early intervention standpoint. There is always the potential of running into overcrowding but it would be a very small sub-set of the larger runaway class. He hoped that this could be restructured to meet federal standards so that this funding would not be lost. The problem is substantial enough that this federal funding should not be driving the entire policy. These are real families with real problems and real children with real needs for focus on their problems. With more intervention earlier more children and families could be helped. Co-chairman Halford said that the same federal funds are saying that nothing can be done to help parents deal with the problems. The system is upside down and the federal funds are not worth it. Parents are not empowered to do anything and then there is only a response after the children are criminals and then they are not treated in adult courts. Senator Rieger asked what the trigger for the ineligibility for the federal funds was. Ms. Worley explained that according to Federal law youth who are not delinquent may not be detained in a locked up facility. Running away is not considered a criminal offense. Senator Phillips inquired whether it could be made a criminal offense. But Ms. Worley said even if it was made a state crime it would not be covered by federal funding. Senator Rieger said perhaps the word "shall" could be changed to "may" on page 1, line 11 of amendment #2 and that would allow for some flexibility. Senator Frank concurred if this would help comply with federal regulations. Senator Rieger said there is some argument in general about giving discretion to the officer. However, this could be explored to see how far one could go with regards to the federal funding. Ms. Worley said she would have to investigate this matter, but it still comes back to the matter of locking up a youth who is just a runaway, has not committed a crime and is not a delinquent, the department would be in jeopardy of the federal funding. There may be some ways this matter could be worked with. Alaska is not the only state dealing with this issue. It is felt there are other ways in dealing with runaways such as prevention and early intervention. Senator Frank said he would like to focus on some real counselling and professional help in dealing with these issues. However it is difficult to bring the services to bear when the child is running. Detention may help to bring this into focus. There will be those who will respond to this intervention but it is not a cure-all. Senator Phillips asked what is the philosophy of the department in dealing with this problem. Ms. Worley said they want to assist families as early as possible, provide more community based help and programs. The issues need to be worked on as families. The department wants to provide whatever support necessary to see successful families. She said runaways were an ongoing problem. If child abuse is claimed that is an issue that has to be dealt with as mandated. If a situation is investigated and no abuse is substantiated the family would be referred for services to help deal with this. The runaway issue is probably the most difficult one to be dealt with. Unless we are committed to locking children up until they are eighteen there are some children that we will never be able to keep at home. Co- chairman Halford said state and federal governments have taken away from parents the ability to enforce the word "no". It has been replaced with social gibberish that has done no good for the last two or three decades. Senator Phillips concurred saying that this is the message they are getting from their constituents. Senator Frank said there are the children who will not respond, but greater focus needs to be placed on those who will. At the present there is a policy of non-intervention and there is help for the family through counselling. Perhaps children will respond to a little more authority. Ms. Worley agreed that all concerned should continue to work together. Senator Sharp asked if there were statistics available on how many of the children at the detention center were runaways. Ms. Worley said that there was nothing to show this information presently. Senator Sharp voiced concern of adults providing overnight shelter for runaways based on their own pleasure. He felt that the best deterrent was to spend one night in jail. Now we are only providing a revolving door convenience for safety. A runaway must know that they are making the choice to runaway and spend the night in prison. This may wake them up to realize that home is not that bad. The child must know that there are choices to be made and one of them is if you run away from home and not abused there are some responsibilities and some deterrents. He supported the bill. Senator Zharoff voiced concern about not all runaways are criminals nor did all criminals start off as runaways. This is a problem in urban areas as well as rural. Perhaps this is something that should be worked on piece by piece until solution is found. It would be good to find out how many runaways there are. In a large number of communities there are no detention facilities and it would be necessary to ship a village runaway to Anchorage to the detention facility. He felt as Senator Rieger in changing the "shall" to "may" would help correct this problem. Co-chairman Halford referred to Senator Rieger's amendment detention center and that was his reason for submitting this amendment. Ms. Worley said the department would agree to the change of "shall" to "may". However, according to federal regulations, a secured facility is still locking up a non-delinquent and the department would be in jeopardy of losing federal funds. It would remedy the situation of overcrowding and need for additional staff and facilities. Senator Frank said he did not believe Congress was interested in preventing states from addressing these problems. He could appreciate them being concerned about locking up runaways but asked that a quick research be done about what is going on in Congress. Perhaps it would allow an opportunity for this kind of intervention for a limited time. Ms. Worley in response to a question from Senator Phillips said the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention regulations are existing regulations. There are a number of other states dealing with the same issues and she said Congress is looking at the possibility of making some changes in those regulations. Senator Frank said in light of the fact there have been several hearings on this bill, in order to achieve what the committee would like to and give the department more flexibility, he recommended the passage of the two amendments and continued work with the department as the bill moved through the process in order to try and save federal funds. Senator Rieger moved his amendment to amendment #2 and without objection it was adopted. Senator Frank moved amendment #1 and without objection it was adopted. Senator Frank moved CSSB 289(FIN) and without objection it was reported out with individual recommendations. Co-chairman Halford asked the Department of Health and Social Services to submit a new fiscal note recognizing a change. Senator Sharp asked the department provide the federal statute preventing detention of a juvenile. Co-chairman concurred.