Group: Juvenile prisons a last resort

Report, fact sheets for ‘holistic’ look at system issued.

Ohio should add programming for “forgotten” youth offenders and use juvenile prisons as a last resort, not treatment options, the Ohio Juvenile Justice Alliance said last week in an overview of the state juvenile-justice system.

The group issued its first-ever report, including 18 fact sheets, to provide a “holistic, comprehensive view of Ohio’s juvenile-justice system,” said Sarah Biehl of the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio, a member of the alliance. “It is designed to be a catalyst to push forward further reform and better serve the needs of all Ohio youth.”

It found that Ohio, unlike many other states, lacks an overall data-collection system, which makes it hard to track the success or failure of youth offenders through the courts, incarceration and treatment.

While the Ohio Department of Youth Services, the state prison agency for youth offenders, has consistently shrunk over the years as juvenile prisons closed, there are still 100,000 juveniles who go through the court system annually. There were just 471 youths in state prisons on Wednesday.

Some findings of the report:

■ Detention is costly, $238 per day per juvenile or $86,876 per year, compared to the $70,000 national average.

■ Black youths make up 17 percent of the state population, but account for 49 percent of youth felonies and 57 percent of youth sent to juvenile facilities.

■ There were 9,000 girls among the 29,000 youth arrested in Ohio in 2012. Among those in custody, 90 percent of girls have mental-health issues; 53 percent of boys do.

“We know what works for youth who get involved with the juvenile justice system,” said Erin Davies of the Juvenile Justice Coalition. “The key is early, outcome-based interventions tailored to each youth’s specific needs.”