Letter to the editor: Ohio’s juvenile justice system must change

Thank you to the USA Network of Ohio newspapers for your in-depth investigation of Ohio’s juvenile lockups and juvenile justice system. I appreciate your focusing on the damage the system does to the juveniles swept up in the system and their families, rather than demonizing them.

I am writing as a board member of the Juvenile Justice Coalition, as well as someone who previously worked in the system and in community-based programs.

Our organization, the Juvenile Justice Coalition, has been advocating for juvenile justice reform in Ohio for 30 years – visiting youth in Department of Youth Services facilities/county detention centers; working with DYS administrators and juvenile judges/county administrators; educating the public about the issues; collaborating with other organizations to bring about change. We have seen the impact of the issues that you have identified in your articles and have had varying degrees of success in addressing them.

We know that community-based programs can be effective, as identified in your articles, Ohio continues to throw away our children by putting them in dangerous prisons and lockups. I hope that your shining a light on the abuses of the system will bring about real and long-term improvements. Ohioans must demand no less. Unless this happens, our children, families and communities will continue to be harmed.

I urge Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio General Assembly to do more to change Ohio’s dangerous juvenile prisons and to invest in community-based alternatives that have been proven to work. I also think that the governor must add include more diversity of perspectives to the commission he created (such as juvenile defenders, parents, youth who have been in the system) so that we can identify and change the issues that led to these exposes.

Sharon Weitzenhof, Bath Township

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Letter to the editor: Ohio’s juvenile justice system must change