Ohio’s youth prisons remain violence prone

COLUMBUS (AP) — Guards have used unauthorized restraints, and young inmates have frequently attacked officers — and one another — in the year after the state settled a federal lawsuit that alleged widespread problems in the youth prison system, records show.

A gang-related fight involving 41 youths broke out in one facility; six youths on parole were accused of committing homicides; and the death of an on-duty guard in a detention center is being investigated, according to a review of hundreds of pages of documents by The Associated Press.

Ohio agreed to make widespread changes after a 2004 lawsuit that uncovered evidence of a culture of violence permeating its seven juvenile correctional facilities, including excessive use of force by guards.

U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley approved the lawsuit’s settlement May 21, 2008, and set a five-year deadline to fix things.

Among incidents since the settlement, according to state police reports and internal Youth Services investigations reviewed by the AP:

UNine instances in which guards were found to have used excessive force or inappropriate restraints on youths. Those include a Jan. 9 incident in which a guard hit a youth in the face, drawing blood, and a March 6 incident in which a guard put his arm around a youth’s neck.

UHundreds of cases in which state police were called to detention facilities to investigate assaults and fights, including 63 cases where injured youths had to be taken to hospitals.

UTwo December incidents in which two youths sexually assaulted a social worker and a guard in separate attacks.

“We still have an awful lot of aggression in our facilities,” Youth Services director Tom Stickrath conceded.

Stickrath said that as more violent youths entered facilities in recent years, the system responded in kind.

“If you look at the carrot-and-stick approach, we became pretty heavy-laden with the sticks,” Stickrath said.

In response, the state is restricting how guards can handle youths, requiring more verbal commands and less use of force when confronting them.

Guards say the state is tying their hands in dangerous situations by limiting their ability to use force.

Al Gerhardstein, a Cincinnati attorney who led the lawsuit against the state and helped negotiate the settlement, said the continued violence is a problem.

Although Ohio hired 107 new guards as part of the settlement, the new employees have even less college education than some of their predecessors, the records show.

Before last May, about 46 percent of guards had some college education. That dropped to about 34 percent of the guards hired since the settlement.

Fred Cohen, a criminal- justice consultant hired to dissect Ohio’s system and report on the state’s progress, says Youth Services made a mistake in the way it screened new hires. But he remains optimistic the system will improve over time.

A new 24-bed unit at the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility north of Columbus provides intensive therapy for male parole violators deemed the most likely to commit new crimes upon their release.

Just a few years ago, the Scioto center had the harsh feel of an adult prison downsized a bit for kids.

Besides the parole violators, the center houses the state’s female offenders and is the first stop for all male offenders before heading off to centers around Ohio.

Cinderblock walls were bare. Profanity was frequent, even with visitors around. Gray-uniformed guards marched offenders across the grounds in military fashion.

Today, murals of Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob Square Pants and the Pink Panther brighten those bare walls in the girls’ unit.