An $80,000 grant from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute helps fund the countywide partnership.
CLARK COUNTY, Ind. — Clark County, Indiana, is taking a new approach to handling youth offenses: focusing on diversion over detention.
Judge Vicki Carmichael signed an order preventing police from bringing juveniles to the detention center in most cases for minor offenses such as disobedience, skipping school or violating curfew.
“When we have kids that need to be there, we have the room for them,” Carmichael said. “But there are kids that don’t need to be there.”
Rachel Patterson, a Clark County juvenile probation officer, said the number of kids detained for these offenses — called status offenses — was too high.
“It started in 2023 because we had almost 400 calls of youth for status offenses only,” Patterson said.