Officials Tentatively Ok Plans To Restructure Detention Center

Commissioners from five north-central Idaho counties have given tentative approval to a plan that will restructure management and programs at the Region II Juvenile Detention Center.

The center was designed to accommodate 16 young offenders, needs 11 to break even financially and is averaging seven a day.

The number has dropped to less than seven at times, Nez Perce County Commission Chairman J.R. Van Tassel said, and county taxpayers have started to subsidize the operation.

The center’s high cost - $15 to $20 a day above other centers in Idaho - probably is one of the reasons population is down, commissioners agreed.

But a larger reason, Van Tassel said, is that Nez Perce County’s Juvenile Probation Department has developed diversion programs that have dramatically reduced the number of young people being put into detention.

Under the reorganization, Juvenile Probation Director Martin Bochenek will head a combined department including the detention center. The center’s current director, Kenneth Buxton, will continue working on day-to-day responsibilities but with the title of assistant director. John Triplett continues as the assistant director of juvenile probation.

Bochenek was regional coordinator of juvenile justice programs for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in Twin Falls before coming to Lewiston in 1995.

Besides taking over the detention center, he also will lead renewed marketing efforts that were started last year by Buxton to bring in juveniles from outside the region, possibly including the federal prison system. He also will work to establish programs such as observation and assessment that have not been available in the area since an old juvenile diagnostic unit at State Hospital North closed several years ago.