DeWine tells youth prison group to 'think big' to find solutions after investigation

Ohio has the money to hire and pay guards, behavioral health clinicians, teachers and others needed inside the state's youth prisons but simply cannot get people to take the jobs, according to Department of Youth Services Director Amy Ast.

"What we're covering today, I want you to know, isn't just an Ohio problem," Ast said during the first meeting of Gov. Mike DeWine's juvenile justice working group on Tuesday. Across the country, juvenile corrections and probation jobs are difficult to fill, according to a new report from the Council for State Governments.

Adding staff would reduce the number of fights and assaults and improve safety for employees and incarcerated children, she said. And the state needs more licensed behavioral health clinicians to deliver one-on-one services to "the highest-risk, highest-need, most complex youth in the state of Ohio," Ast said.

DeWine formed the group following publication of an eight-month investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Akron Beacon Journal, Canton Repository and other publications in the USA TODAY Network Ohio that documented staffing problems, violent outbursts and trauma inside juvenile lockups.

Employees and kids are injured − sometimes seriously − in fights and assaults that erupt without warning. Workers are struggling to maintain order and fear for their own safety. Within three years of leaving a state youth prison, four in 10 teens are incarcerated again in either the youth or adult system. And those who don't return to prison face a higher likelihood of dying an early death.

The working group, headed by former Department of Youth Services director Tom Stickrath, will focus on staffing problems, violence, behavioral health services and incarcerated youth populations in prisons and local detention centers.

Stickrath scheduled a combination of virtual and in person meetings through February. Stickrath said the governor challenged the group to "think big" when searching for fixes.

Who is on the task force?

Initially, DeWine appointed current and retired juvenile court judges, a prosecutor, an academic and others to the task force.

Following criticism that the group membership lacked diverse viewpoints, the DeWine administration added Hancock County Sheriff Michael Heldman, former Talbert House director Neil Tilow, Habeeba Grimes of the Cleveland-based Positive Education Program, Dan Jones of the Northwest Training and Rehabilitative Center and Mujaddid Muhammad of the Restored Citizen FAITH Foundation.

What's next?

Ast is scheduled to answer questions before the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee on Dec. 5 at the Ohio Statehouse. The committee is a bipartisan panel of legislators that have oversight of the state's adult and youth prisons.

DeWine's task force will meet again 10 a.m. to noon Dec. 12 at the Ohio Department of Public Safety building.

Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio youth prisons group focuses on staff, violence problems