The Yukon's youth jail is changing with the times.

In the year after new youth crime legislation aimed at reducing the number of young people behind bars was enacted last April 1, territorial youth justice officials have been looking at how to use the Young Offenders' Facility on Range Road.

'(YOF)'s for the most part sitting empty or virtually empty,' said Pat Living, spokeswoman for the territorial Department of Health and Social Services, which oversees both youth justice and the youth jail. 'So we don't really need the secure custody aspect of it.'

One result of the internal review over the past year are some recently-completed renovations that give youth out on bail or living in open custody more options.

Two bedrooms have been created within the facility, separate from the secure custody section, to be used for open custody or bail beds.

'This is part of the normal, internal trying to figure out how we utilize what we have to meet the needs that we now have, because our needs have changed,' Living said.

Fewer youth are being charged and even fewer are being sent to jail. Under the year-old legislation, the focus for non-violent crimes is rehabilitation and putting youth through community programs rather than locking them up.

'There's so few kids being given secure custody orders, there's so few kids being charged. With this YCJA, we're looking at dealing with them in different ways,' Living said.

The two bedrooms, which cost approximately $15,000 to renovate, have been used at least twice for open custody already.

Youth sentenced to open custody orders are placed in caregiver homes and are often under line-of-sight supervision.

It can be difficult to find caregivers willing and able to take in young people on the wrong side of the law, Living indicated.

If the courts hand down more open custody orders than there are homes available, the new rooms at YOF could be used. Or, she said, the renovated rooms could be put into service if caregivers need a break or leave on trips.

The rooms are also available for young people who can technically be released on bail, but have no other place to go.

In court last week, a justice of the peace agreed to release a 17-year-old boy accused with arson to the new facility. Newly charged with several breaches of his bail conditions, the young man is on his last chance and the new bail bed service seems to be the only option left, the prosecutor said in court last week.

That youth was ordered to be back at the YOF by his 5 p.m. daily curfew.

Living said the changes to the youth jail didn't happen as a result of a late January case in which a justice of the peace had strong words for the territorial government department's failure to 'step up to the plate' and help find the boy a place to stay.

'This is not linked to any particular case or situation,' Living said this week about the YOF renovations. 'It's part of an ongoing review of how to make this facility work better for us, or how to use it better given that we have so few secure custody cases these days.'

Charged with going after his father with an axe, the boy was eligible for release on the condition that he have no contact with his dad, essentially banning him from going home.

After being ordered to look into placements for the teen and report back to the court, the family and children's services branch said some other social agency should be the one to help as this youth didn't fall under the child protection category, despite being involved with the department in the past.

After the teen sat in remand custody for a week, the court released him, noting the 17-year-old was essentially being released to the streets.

The teen's family had to rent an apartment for him and his mother to stay in, leaving the father alone with the other children and the family with two households to pay for. He's since pleaded guilty and was sentenced, though he's still living separate from the family home with his mother.

Requests to the youth justice department for bail beds are quite rare, said Living.

Caregiver homes can also be used to provide a bail bed to a youth with no other place to go, she said.

Back in January, the court was told despite an open custody home being available, the youth couldn't stay there because it wasn't designated as a bail placement.

Living said this week that if the YOF bail beds or a caregiver home wasn't appropriate for a particular youth, the department would also look at putting the young person up in a hotel.

'It would be based on the needs of the individual and what we had available at the time,' she said.

'We're a very small jurisdiction. We're not going to have everything on the platter, so we have to work with what we have, as these cases arise, deal with each one individually in the way that best suits the needs.'