Chancellor Joseph Kilgore was slated to announce plans for a Sixth Chancery District Youth Drug Court this week after the Star-Herald deadline.
We applaud the effort to address the root causes of juvenile crime through early intervention and supervision that may help deter drug use and prevent criminal behavior.
Working with youths early on may very well dissuade them from further criminal activity and head them away from a life of expensive incarceration.
The program doesn’t excuse or coddle the behavior, either.
Those who participate in the program must have the support of family and will be under Youth Drug Court supervision for a minimum of one year. Program participants are placed under house arrest and may be subjected to drug testing three times a week. Those failing a screening may be detained.
“There is a great need to address the issues that are contributing to juvenile drug use and ultimately juvenile crime,” Judge Kilgore said in a press release. “The use of drugs is somehow involved in many of these cases. Even if the initial infraction is not drug-related, our referees are able to find drug use somewhere in the picture.”
The hope is that the direct oversight the program can provide – which traditional youth courts don’t have the capacity for – is the missing link in heading off the progression toward a life of criminal activity.
The Youth Drug Court will operate in the three most populous counties of the Sixth Chancery District - including Attala County - but those who qualify for the services in Carroll, Choctaw and Kemper counties may be placed in one of the programs in Attala, Neshoba or Winston counties.
The preliminary $75,000 needed to operate the program will be money well spent if only one or two youth offenders manage to avoid adult incarceration down the road.
