Juvenile Detention Center Nurse

Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson says juvenile detention centers  must meet a host of new state licensing requirements, including, having a full time nurse and providing extra training in mental health assessments.

“The main thing, when a detainee is brought in, within 24 hours they have to be mentally and medically evaluated, so we will have them on staff and on site there where we can get that done,” Sheriff Johnson said.

Those new licensing stipulations took effect in October, after the Mississippi legislature required the licensing of juvenile detention centers and spelled out the standards.

It is estimated the salary for a full time nurse will run around $70,000. The sheriff says there was no other option.

“The alternative would be you would close it, you would end up having to find some job for several staffers or they would lose their job, second thing you would have to do is find somewhere to detain juvenile delinquents here in Lee County. The closest place would be DeSoto County, if they took them,” he said.

The tougher standards can be traced back to mandates from the US Department of Justice, which , among other things, says juvenile detention centers must have a school for offenders. Sheriff Johnson points out the county gets no financial help from either the state or federal government to pay for the mandates.

The full time nurse would start working at the Juvenile Detention Center in March. The Lee County JDC also houses inmates from surrounding counties.