2-27-2008 Ohio:
COLUMBUS (AP) — The violence is provoked by the simplest things: A lunch tray mix-up, a snatched notebook, a sassy comeback or, in one case, a threatened rubber band attack.
But this is no middle school cafeteria. It's Ohio's youth prison system, where juvenile missteps can have painful consequences.
Since 2004, there have been at least 22 cases among the roughly 1,800 inmates housed by the Ohio Department of Youth Services being improperly slapped, kicked, choked, beaten, pushed through gates, rushed into walls or sexually molested by their caretakers.
In two cases — in 2004 and last May — a guard broke the arm of a teenager, according to department records reviewed by The Associated Press. A 180-pound youth housed in Marion lost consciousness when he was pressed to the floor by a 421-pound corrections officer. Another's eardrum was shattered when he was kicked in the head by a guard.
State officials are aware they have a problem. A consultant's report in December described a system saturated with violence and mistreatment, where youth are scared of each other and the staff, and guards fear the youth they oversee. Consultant Fred Cohen described the fear at one institution as "an all-consuming fire."
Last April, the Children's Law Center and other groups broadened a 2004 civil rights lawsuit against the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility into a class action case against the entire agency, unhappy with the progress the department had made on its promises. The state agreed to abide by Cohen's recommendations based on that litigation and concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Cohen wrote, "As this lawsuit moves forward, a dramatic reduction in staff violence should be the first order of business."
Youth prisons director Tom Stickrath said efforts are under way to reverse a culture within the state's eight youth institutions that for many years resembled that of an adult prison. That model has been increasingly viewed as inappropriate for young offenders serving short-term sentences.
The juveniles are held for offenses ranging from murder or rape to receiving stolen property. The average sentence is 11 months.
Stickrath said every guard in 2007 took an advanced course in conflict resolution that focuses on using verbal rather than physical means to resolve conflicts. Youth inmates, nearly all of whom grew up in violent settings, are scheduled to take the course this year.
Instead of law enforcement-style uniforms, staff have changed to khaki cargo pants and light blue button-down shirts. A cold institutional atmosphere has been diminished with comfy couches and other aesthetic changes.
Yet violence occurred last year, records show, even as Cohen's review was under way.
On Aug. 7, a Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility guard forcibly escorted a youth to solitary confinement whom investigators later determined had done nothing wrong. When the boy resisted being locked up, the guard forced him to the floor out of sight of other officers and put his knee into the back of his neck.
The guard initially told investigators the youth had slipped on the newly waxed floor, a fact he later recanted among others.
A dietary consultant at Indian River detention center was fired in October after inmates reported that she was having inappropriate sexual contact with an inmate. She denied further allegations that she had given the youth cigarettes, lighters, tobacco and money.
Other investigations last year confirmed a guard threw hot coffee on a juvenile during a dispute and a different guard went to a youth's room out of sight of his colleagues and assaulted the boy.
Peter Wray, a spokesman for the union that represents juvenile corrections officers, or JCOs, said the officers are often asked to work double or triple shifts, to supervise large groups of youth without help, and to follow procedures that are "sometimes silly, sometimes dangerous."
"It's a system that has poor training, it's a system that has forced the JCOs into being totally security-only and has prevented them from playing any kind of positive treatment role, it's a system that's understaffed in six of the eight institutions, and it's a situation where mandated overtime is unbelievably out of control," said Wray, of the Ohio Civil and Service Employees Union.
He said such working conditions, many of them outlined in Cohen's report, contribute to the violence because guards are often overtired, overworked and stressed.
"When that (violent incident) happens, it's a symptom not the disease," he said.
Stickrath said he preaches non-violence when possible, but said running youth prisons isn't always going to be a peaceful pursuit.
"We understand that there's going to be that (physical force), but it's got to be within our policy and it can't be done for punishment," he said. "It can't go beyond what our policies and procedures and training permit."
He said he personally watches videotapes of incidents that prompt complaints, which have totaled more than 200 since the lawsuit was filed in 2004.
The department also has started a reporting system that allows managers to swiftly identify anomalies at an institution, such as a sudden spike in gang activity, suicide attempts or incident reports.
"My caveat is we're not going to manage this agency with use of force and use of luck," Stickrath said. "We're going to manage it through communications and keeping the kids busy, and using training and other techniques.
"But it's a clear kind of culture shift for the agency as a whole, and that's not easy." ..more.. by JULIE CARR SMYTH, AP Statehouse Correspondent
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