CHEYENNE - The chairman of the State Advisory Council on Juvenile Justice for the past two years, Ric Paul, said Friday that he's resigning from the council in frustration.

Paul said he became fed up with widespread unwillingness to change a system that often doesn't try to point troubled juveniles onto a better path, but prosecutes and punishes many of them as if they were adults.

"We hit a lot of deaf ears," he said.

Paul served 10 years on the council. A new chairman likely will be named at the next council meeting in March, said Park County Circuit Judge Bruce Waters, the council's vice chairman.

The council's stated goal is to improve and better coordinate juvenile justice and youth services across the state. In part that has meant getting Wyoming again to participate in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the federal law governing how and when to lock up youth under 18.

Wyoming is the only state that still doesn't take part in the act. Paul said many police and lawmakers in Wyoming still don't want to take part out of disdain for the federal government telling them what to do.

"I used to think some of that way in law enforcement years ago," said Paul, a former Gillette police chief. "Today, that complying with federal regulations isn't a matter of doing what the feds say, it's a matter of doing what's best for youth."

He said youths get in more serious trouble nowadays than in years past.

"It just baffles me that our community leaders and the legislators as a whole seem not to want to grasp the issues of juvenile justice and the number of youth entering our court system and eventually our prison," he said.

The Legislature's Joint Judiciary Committee has made juvenile justice reform its top priority for 2008 and 2009. One committee bill this session would provide funding for local boards that would set up and oversee youth programs such as juvenile probation, treatment and mentoring.

A goal would be to give Wyoming a basically consistent approach to troubled youth while letting local officials control how they provide youth services.

Paul said the bill is a "good start." But in his resignation letter, he criticized "people in governmental positions sitting through presentations on their laptops instead of listening to presenters advocating for change."

On Friday, Paul also criticized Gov. Dave Freudenthal and the Wyoming Department of Family Services for not providing a full-time staff employee who would work solely for the all-volunteer council.

"The council under this governor or previous governors has never been utilized to its fullest potential," he said.

Freudenthal declined to comment. Department of Family Services spokeswoman Juliette Rule said the council's half-time staff person was recently promoted but the department is seeking for a replacement for her.

"It's up to the council to use her to their best advantage," Rule said. "She was available to them."