Agency responds to victimization stats

The top official in the Ohio department overseeing the state’s juvenile detention system on Thursday outlined what’s being done in response to a federal agency’s finding that Ohio’s system is the worst in the nation on one index of sexual victimization.

A U.S. Department of Justice survey of 6,049 juvenile prisoners released in December found that at 15.3%, Ohio’s incarcerated youth reported the highest percentage of forced or coerced sexual activity with other youths or staff members in 2018.

In prepared remarks, Ohio Department of Youth Services Assistant Director Julie Walburn explained to the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee what’s been done since 2018 — and why she didn’t report the results of the federal survey when he met with the committee in December, just after receiving them.

“We received an embargoed copy of the survey report only a few days before, and we were prohibited by the federal government from sharing the report or discussing it in any way,” Walburn told the panel.

“We know that some members of this committee felt we were painting a rosy picture of our agency, but we were simply following directions of the previous CIIC Executive Director (Charlie Adams), who asked us to come in to talk about programming and educational initiatives at our facilities.

“DYS certainly and I never intended to mislead this committee.”

Walburn noted that a smaller percentage of the state’s incarcerated youth reported sexual abuse in 2018 than in 2012, when it was 19.8%. He also noted that at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility the rate had dropped from 30.3% in 2012 to 16.7% in 2018.

“While these numbers show improvement, no level of sexual victimization is ever acceptable. We want all youth to feel safe physically, mentally, and emotionally in our juvenile correctional facilities,” Walburb said in the prepared testimony.

At the Circleville facility, the agency improved housing units so youth have private bathrooms and the staffto-youth ratio was halved, Gies said. Among the other steps DYS has taken:

■ Complete overhaul of youth sexual assault policies.

■ Complete renovation of Indian River Juvenile Correctional

Facility bathrooms and shower areas for youth to meet Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) standards.

■ Upgrades to security cameras at all three youth-detention facilities.

■ Creation of locally assigned investigators at each juvenile correctional facility.

■ Creation of youth-focused materials pertaining to sexual safety.

After the presentation, Rep. Jeffrey Crossman, D-Parma, said the figures reported in the federal survey seemed “quite high and alarming” and he asked what the agency would do to reduce them.

Youth Services Director Ryan Gies said that any reports of sexual abuse are too many, and that the agency would do a survey of its own to get a better picture of the problem.