DOCKET: Floyd Juvenile Court Handles More Than Just Crime

When it comes to juvenile delinquency, the most common factor is a lack of parental involvement. No one knows that better than a judge who sees these cases on a daily basis.

“If you give me two involved parents in a household, I’d be out of a job,” Floyd County Juvenile Court Chief Judge Steven Bennett told members of the Rome Noon Optimist Club.

When many think of juvenile court, they think of cases where juveniles are charged with a crime — but that’s only one area the court covers. Among other things, the court handles traffic offenses for those who are 16 or under.

“I oftentimes refer to juvenile court as the forgotten court,” Bennet said. “Almost nobody remembers we have a juvenile court. I think part of that is because, not that we function in secret, but a lot of what we do is confidential. Because we’re dealing with minors, we typically keep their names private.”

However, the large part of the court’s function involves delinquency cases. The judge summed up delinquency cases like this — if an adult did it, it would be a crime. Examples of delinquency crimes are burglary, arson, and shoplifting.

Floyd County had 236 delinquency cases going through the courts last year.

“The stated purpose of juvenile court is not to punish kids,” Bennett said. “The purpose of juvenile court is rehabilitation.”

There’s a cliché that sending criminals to prison makes better criminals, he said, and the saying especially applies to children. Putting juveniles in jail when there are other ways to prevent the behavior is counterproductive.

As chief judge, Bennett has seen that most of the first offenders in delinquent cases won’t reoffend. He attributes this to keeping them out of juvenile detention facilities and using alternative methods to correct their behavior.

Another large portion of the court’s scope covers dependency cases, which are divided into two categories: abuse and neglect.

Most of those cases involve neglect. Child neglect is when a parent or guardian fails to provide for a child’s needs. In Floyd County, 95% of these cases involve substance abuse or mental illness.

Last year, the Floyd County Juvenile Court handled 160 dependency cases. These are the most time-consuming and disturbing cases, he said. Resolving a dependency case often takes around five court dates.

These cases start at the Department of Family and Children Services and move to the court when the department petitions for custody. When they receive a petition, a judge reviews the case and determines whether a child needs to be removed from the home.

Removing a child from their home is a drastic measure, Bennett said. Once a child is removed from the house, the court tries to find a suitable family member to take the child, but if they can’t, then the kid goes into foster care.

Another issue, Bennett said, is that Floyd County has a shortage of registered foster parents. At this time, the majority of children placed in foster care locally are sent to a home in Augusta.