By Dr. Ferrell Miller
The JC Breakfast Optimist Club met in Jim Clark’s Chevrolet showroom on Wednesday to learn about the regional juvenile Detention Center. Angela Hamilton, Assistant Director of the North Central Kansas Regional Juvenile Detention Center was the guest speaker.
Angela shared that she “attended Emporia State University in a teacher education program following high school and worked as a dispatcher at the Emporia Police Department. It was that job that inspired her to get a degree in Criminal Justice and she transferred to Kansas State University. She later became a Probation Officer and is now working as the Assistant Director at the Detention Center in Junction City.”
There are 28 beds in the Center. Eight of those beds are reserved for CINC’s (Child In Need Of Care). Angela stated that “a judge may require a juvenile to be confined in the facility for 48 hours up to a year depending on the reason for confinement and the judge’s release. USD 475 provides for educating young people at the Center except those in the Secure Care side.” Donna Shell is the only teacher in the facility and is responsible for a curriculum that ranges from elementary through high school.
Education is an important part of the process to break the cycle of drug use, theft, assault, aggravated assault, and other violent crimes. “As many as three high school credits may be earned in six months. These young people have been dealt a terrible hand. Parents (and peers) teach them to use meth, fentanyl and commit crimes.”
Angela also said “I love my job. I get to help people who can’t help themselves. I get to teach them how to wash clothes, wash dishes, make and use a financial budget, (get along with others), and clean after themselves.” These are things many detainees have never learned.