Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, has again asked for Gov. Haley Barbour to call the Legislature into a special session to address Mississippi’s juvenile justice system.

As of this morning, Barbour had not called a special session, a spokesman at the Governor’s Office said.

Flaggs’ latest request follows a report Wednesday that the Mississippi Department of Human Services, which oversees the state’s two training schools, Oakley in Raymond and Columbia in Marion County, has started releasing juveniles who are close to completing their sentences in an effort to ease staffing shortages.

Officials blame inadequate staffing for 56 student assaults on employees, 125 student fights and three escapes – all since October.

Flaggs, a youth court counselor with the Warren County Juvenile Court and chairman of the House Juvenile Justice Committee, guided legislation last year that paved the way for the reform of the two training schools. Now, he is asking for more.

&#8220We cannot continue to make incremental reforms to our juvenile justice system,” he said. &#8220We know how to reform our broken system. If we don’t act quickly to provide resources, we are going to spend the state’s dollars defending lawsuits instead of rehabilitating children.”

The lawmaker has three reforms he wants the governor and Legislature to implement immediately.

First, he wants the state to establish and fund a continuum of community-based programs. More than 76 percent of the students at the training schools are non-violent offenders, Flaggs said, and he believes they can be rehabilitated.

Secondly, Flaggs wants legislators to realign salaries for the schools’ staffs. The base salary of a direct care worker is about $16,000 a year, but with benefits it is around $20,000. He believes better compensation will improve conditions.

The final reform Flaggs is proposing is to remove the Department of Human Services from its role as overseer.

&#8220The Department of Human Services is a large, unwieldy agency facing two lawsuits for failing to appropriately care for Mississippi’s children,” he said. &#8220To avoid further harm to our children – and to avoid spending state dollars defending lawsuits – oversight of the facility should be removed from the agency.”

In March, a private monitor put in charge of overseeing Oakley and Columbia said violations continued at the two training schools and that Mississippi is failing to comply with the terms of a settlement between the state and federal government. The monitor’s reports come on the heels of a 2003 lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice, who sued Mississippi because of poor conditions at the schools. A year ago, the state admitted wrongdoing and entered into a four-year agreement to make changes at the training schools.

In a report from Aug. 1 to Dec. 15, 2005, the monitor said most of the conditions of the agreement had not been met. The report cited, among other things, student complaints about staff cursing them and using inconsistent disciplinary practices, and continued fights between students.

At the time of the report, the schools served 550 children – boys ages 10 to 17 at Oakley in Hinds County and girls 10 to 18 at Columbia.