Tarrant County Juvenile Board asks for help with backlog of cases involving minors
FORT WORTH, Texas - The Tarrant County Juvenile Board is asking county leaders to give them some extra help to relieve a backlog of cases.
FOX 4 first reported on Monday on the high number of juveniles in custody, many of them in custody far longer than they should be.
That's according to an audit of the overcrowding problem at the juvenile detention center.
On Tuesday, the Tarrant County Juvenile court board discussed some possible fixes.
Care Cockerell was the author of that study. He’s the former director of juvenile services. The judges asked him questions about his findings. He explained the review as a snapshot of a current timeframe and not an in-depth look at underlying conditions.
MORE: Audit uncovers major overcrowding at Tarrant County's juvenile detention center
Juvenile Court Director Judge Alex Kim explained many youth remain at the detention center longer than desired because no one will take them and commit to a legally outlined plan for seeing their case through. He also mentioned some youth are victims of trafficking and there is no responsible party identified for them.
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley asked the board to consider the option of temporarily assigning a district judge to help relieve some of the juvenile court backlog.
"We’re talking about expanding the responsibility of one of the civil court judges or one of the courts that has general jurisdiction to be able to include doing some, hearing some juvenile cases," he said. "I asked them to consider assigning at least another district judge some juvenile court authority. I still have questions and concerns about the associate court judges."
Judge Whitley is referring to so-called ‘ghost’ courts with two associate court judges found to rarely hear juvenile cases. He’s considering defunding those courts.
The county commissioners would need to make a decision before adopting its budget in September.
The juvenile board went into closed session with regard to possibly adding a temporary judge to the juvenile system. There was no action taken on the option.