Violence, abuse mar juvenile detention centers

COLUMBUS (AP) — The violence is provoked by the simplest things: a lunch tray mix-up, a snatched notebook, a sassy comeback or, in one case, a threatened rubber band attack.

But this is no middle school cafeteria. It’s Ohio’s youth prison system, where juvenile missteps can have painful consequences.

Since 2004, there have been at least 24 cases among the roughly 1,800 inmates housed by the Ohio Department of Youth Services being improperly slapped, kicked, choked, beaten, pushed through gates, rushed into walls or sexually molested by their caretakers.

In two cases — in 2004 and last May — a guard broke the arm of a teenager, according to department records reviewed by The Associated Press. A 180-pound youth housed in Marion lost consciousness when he was pressed to the floor by a 421-pound corrections officer. Another’s eardrum was shattered when he was kicked in the head by a guard.

State officials are aware they have a problem. A consultant’s report in December described a system saturated with violence and mistreatment, where youth are scared of each other and the staff, and guards fear the youth they oversee. Consultant Fred Cohen described the fear at one institution as “an all-consuming fire.”

Last April, the Children’s Law Center and other groups broadened a 2004 civil-rights lawsuit against the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility into a class-action case against the entire agency, unhappy with the progress the department had made on its promises. The state agreed to abide by Cohen’s recommendations based on that litigation and concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Cohen wrote, “As this lawsuit moves forward, a dramatic reduction in staff violence should be the first order of business.”

Youth prisons director Tom Stickrath said efforts are under way to reverse a culture within the state’s eight youth institutions that for many years resembled that of an adult prison. That model has been increasingly viewed as inappropriate for young offenders serving short-term sentences.

The juveniles are held for offenses ranging from murder or rape to receiving stolen property. The average sentence is 11 months.

Stickrath said every guard in 2007 took an advanced course in conflict resolution that focuses on using verbal rather than physical means to resolve conflicts. Youth inmates, nearly all of whom grew up in violent settings, are scheduled to take the course this year.

Instead of law enforcement-style uniforms, staff have changed to khaki cargo pants and light blue button-down shirts. A cold institutional atmosphere has been diminished with comfy couches and other aesthetic changes.

Yet violence occurred last year, records show, even as Cohen’s review was under way.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.