Tulsa County Has New Resource For Juvenile Offenders

NewsOn6.com  

TULSA, OK -- The City of Tulsa held a ribbon cutting for the new Tulsa Area Community Intervention Center, a 24-hour a day, seven days a week resource for juveniles in trouble with the law.

Youth Services of Tulsa will manage the CIC, which will serve as an intake, assessment and referral system for juveniles who have been arrested on misdemeanor or delinquent offenses in Tulsa County. It will be a short-term reception facility that will hold juveniles up to 24-hours providing assessments and referrals to families of the ask-risk kids.

The CIC will open Tuesday, June 1st.

"The Tulsa Area CIC is ultimately filling a gap in services we have for law enforcement and the juvenile justice system," said Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett.

"In many cases, when a juvenile is picked up by a law enforcement officer, the officer has to find the appropriate facility to take the juvenile, as well as, make a contact to the juvenile's guardian to be picked-up. The Tulsa Area CIC will give law enforcement officers the chance to quickly drop-off the juvenile then return back to Tulsa streets within 15 minutes of arrival at the center."

Acting Chief of Police Chuck Jordan said the facility will not only allow officers to return to the streets faster but will be a better location for under 18 offenders to wait than the city jail.

In 1995, the State of Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs began to establish Community Intervention Centers throughout the state. The Tulsa Area CIC will be the ninth intervention center established in the state of Oklahoma.

Cities such as Oklahoma City, Lawton, Norman and Muskogee currently have intervention centers that provide services for their counties. The CIC will also track trends in local juvenile crime.

"With widespread concern about juvenile crime in the country and Oklahoma, the Tulsa Area CIC will serve as a deterrent to juvenile crime in Tulsa County," Dr. Sandra Richardson, Director of Tulsa Area CIC said.

"By having an assessment and referral system for juveniles, we will be able to identify and intervene with juvenile's who are at risk of becoming tomorrow's serious, violent and chronic offenders."