Find Bill
Find Your Legislator
Legislative Deadlines
March 29, 2024
RSS Feed Permanent URL -A +A

Minutes for HB2200 - Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice

Short Title

Allowing evidence-based program account money to be used on certain children, requiring the department of corrections to build data systems and allowing for overall case length limit extensions for certain juvenile offenders.

Minutes Content for Thu, Jan 27, 2022

Chairperson Owens opened the hearing on HB2200.  Natalie Scott gave an overview of the bill. (Attachment 7) Ms. Scott stood for questions.

Jim Howell stated this bill touches many of the right points that he believes are needed.  Mr. Howell provided his recommendations for improvements to this bill. (Attachment 8)

Stuart Little testified on behalf of Behavioral Health Association of Kansas in support of the bill.  He stated that his comments were in regards to the supervision end of the components in the bill.  He commented on section 6 amendments in the bill and stated he felt they were important and valuable. (Attachment 9)

John Nicholas testified in support of the bill.  He stated there were several positives from (2016)SB367 but we need to find the savings from the changes implemented and direct those savings toward meeting the needs of the youth. (Attachment 10)

Kyle Kessler testified in support of the bill.  He stated the identification and resourcing for evidence based practices is a positive thing. (Attachment 11)

Written only testimony in support of the bill was submitted by:

Hope Cooper stated the Kansas Department of Corrections appreciated the opportunity to offer a perspective on the bill and that they are neutral on the bill as proposed.  She provided a few suggestions for changes. (Attachment 14) Amendments proposed in section 5 would require Kansas Department of Corrections to develop a system to facilitate exchanging of confidential data.  Ms. Cooper shared there is a  memorandum of agreement that currently exists to exchange described data. (Attachment 15)

Mike Fonkert testified in opposition to the bill.  He asked the committee to demand the data when we talk about juvenile justice reform.  His two main reasons for opposing this bill are due to the net widening effect it would have and that while he recognizes the need for services for kids in the youth justice and child welfare systems, he cautioned that programs do not always work across populations. (Attachment 16)

Kristen Powell testified in opposition to the bill.  She stated that allowing judges to have more discretion in juvenile offender cases and allowing for case length limit extensions will set us back from the progress that we, as a state made, when we passed (2016)SB367. (Attachment 17) 

Jazmine Rogers testified in opposition to the bill.  She stated the intention of (2016)SB367 was to transform the juvenile justice system.  We would be going backward by allowing judges to extend sentence lengths.  She said incarceration doesn't prevent repeat offenses because it does not get at the root causes of why young people are committing crimes in the first place and we need options that heal and support young people. (Attachment 18)

The conferees stood for questions.

Chairperson Owens closed the hearing on HB2200.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:17 PM.