Can Wyo's failing juvenile justice system be fixed?

By Kerry Drake

Wyofile.com

Wyoming officials knew something was seriously wrong with the state’s juvenile justice system in 1970, when a governor’s committee examined the issue and came to the startling conclusion that no system actually existed.

“It is clear that there is no uniformity in the disposition of matters involving juveniles at the local level,” the panel’s report concluded. “Change has been slow to come.”

The ink from that document could be fresh today. The Legislature has undertaken piecemeal attempts at juvenile justice reform in the past half-century, but two 20...