Some juvenile offenders get help, not charges
A program that allows police officers to seek help for low-level juvenile offenders without charging them in Franklin County Juvenile Court wasn’t getting much use after it was created in the fall of 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought it to a complete stop.
With many pandemic-related restrictions now gradually being lifted, organizers of the Police-initiated Diversion (PID) program have been working to encourage police departments to use and expand the strategy for preventing some juveniles from being saddled with delinquency charges for minor offenses. then
“Some kids just need some sort of services or some sort of help to get them going in the right direction, as opposed to putting formal charges on them that are associated with a label that they’re a ‘bad kid,’” said Rich Blascak, community enrichment supervisor for the Franklin County Juvenile Court.
“It just gives them an opportunity to see if we can address some of the issues in their lives, and with their families, and hopefully move forward with no court involvement,” he said.
Only youths picked up for a misdemeanor offenses and with no significant prior contact with Juvenile Court are eligible for the program, he said.
The program doesn’t apply to
juveniles involved in the type of violent crimes, including carjackings, that have been an increasing concern for police. Instead, PID is seen as a way to prevent first-time, low-level offenders from escalating to more dangerous behavior.
An individualized case plan, guided by a PID specialist, is developed for juveniles accepted into the program. If a juvenile hasn’t participated or achieved the plan’s goals within six months, the original delinquency charge is filed in Juvenile Court.
The initiative began as a pilot program in October 2019 and was developed by a committee that included representatives of the court, the Columbus Division of Police and the Franklin County prosecutor’s office.
“We were looking for something on the front end that could be done before charges were filed for things like minor shoplifting or trespassing offenses,” said Columbus police Deputy Chief Jennifer Knight, who served on the committee.
“The idea was to look for kids who could benefit from programming without having to be charged, go to court and maybe get an attorney before finding out that they qualify for programming,” she said.
The PID statistics show that Columbus police referred one juvenile into the program in October 2019 and a combined 13 in January, February and early March 2020.
After COVID-19 protocols went into place in mid-march, the program received no referrals for the next five months.
Blascak said he took that opportunity to conduct outreach to suburban police departments, some of which invited him to address their officers during roll calls to explain the program to them.
Among the most-interested was the Whitehall Police Department, whose officers have diverted 10 juveniles to the program since December.
“It seemed like a better way to deal with low-level juvenile offenders,” said Whitehall police Deputy Chief Daniel Kelso. “It’s something other than just throwing them into the court system. It
gives them a metaphorical rap on the head to straighten them out and get them some help before they get into more trouble down the line.”
Meanwhile, Columbus police officers haven’t referred any juveniles to the program since September.
Knight attributed that to the decline in interactions between officers and juveniles since the pandemic began rather than a lack of interest among officers. Most of the referrals to the program had come from resource officers in the city’s high schools or incidents at public libraries, all of which closed during the pandemic, she said.
“Those contact points were no longer there. I really think it’s been that lack of engagement opportunities,” said Knight, who expects that to change in the summer months.
Columbus City schools allowed the contract with Columbus police for resource officers to expire on June 30 and it hasn’t been renewed, but Knight said
she doesn’t think the lack of resource officers in the high schools should interfere with the PID program.
Any officer who might be called to a school on a student accused of a misdemeanor – such as disorderly conduct related to a fight – is trained to use diversion when appropriate, Knight said.
And any concerns that officers might avoid using the program because it takes more time than more traditional approaches to juvenile offenders were addressed when the system was created, she said.
“We knew it had to be something that isn’t more difficult for officers,” Knight said. “We built it so officers wouldn’t have as much paperwork with this program.”
Any time an officer detains a juvenile for a low-level offense, he or she can decide to call the PID center to see if the youth is eligible for the diversion program.
Juveniles who qualify are taken by
the officer to the PID center, located at the Village Network on the East Side. A parent or guardian is contacted and must agree to participate for the juvenile to be accepted into the program.
A 52-question assessment tool is then given to the juvenile by a PID specialist to identify any mental-health or behavioral issues that require treatment as part of the case plan.
The program benefits all parties involved in the process, said Chris Clark, chief counsel for the juvenile division of the Franklin County prosecutor’s office.
“It implements the same services the kid would probably get if adjudicated through the court,” he said. “The kid doesn’t have to go to court, isn’t officially charged, is not made a part of the system, but is still getting services they need.” jfutty@dispatch.com @johnfutty