COLUMBUS — While the state’s adult prison population is rising to new heights, the juvenile detention population has been decreasing, especially among girls, because of local treatment and incarceration programs, the state’s youth prisons chief says.

The average daily population in Department of Youth Services facilities declined from 2,177 in 2001 to 1,596 in April, according to department records. The girls’ decline was more dramatic, going from 187 girls in 2001 to 72 as of April. The average stay in a DYS center is 11 months.

Over the same period, the adult prison population in Ohio has grown from 45,259 to 49,973, with an average stay of 2.2 years.

“It is a different dynamic than the adult side,” department director Tom Stickrath said.

The reason for the decline is an increase in community-based services such as local detention centers, mental health facilities and family counseling centers that the state partially funds, and an overall drop in juvenile crime, Stickrath said.

“We are really targeting at-risk girls coming through the court system for intervention,” he said.

The state has seven juvenile detention centers for boys, and the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility in Delaware for girls. However, the community centers keep kids closer to their families and enhance their chances for rehabilitation, Stickrath said.

“There’s an emphasis toward family involvement,” Stickrath said. “We’ve had close to 500 kids in these programs, only two have ended up coming into DYS.”

The program means only the most serious delinquent crimes result in DYS incarceration, he said. Those include sexual assault and crimes involving guns. The local detention programs are working in each of Ohio’s 88 counties, said Judge Thomas Lipps, who has presided in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, Juvenile Division, for 10 years.

County detention centers, created by the legislature in 1996, are seeing populations swell as the state facilities turn more offenders to the local programs.

“These other kids are going to a treatment facility. They might be put back into society a little quicker,” Lipps said. “Most of those kids are having a placement in the community.”

One alternative is the use of mental health courts, spearheaded by Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton. Lipps said many of the children headed for detention centers really belong in the mental health system.

While the juvenile crime rate is going down, shocking crimes such as the shooting spree at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 when 12 were killed, are keeping a perception of rampant youth crime with the public, Lipps said.

“Nationally and in the state delinquency offenses are definitely going down. But since 2002, the number of gun cases has quadrupled. The drastic-ness of some of the offenses, they make headlines and they should,” Lipps said. “It’s the notoriousness, the seriousness, the gunplay, the deaths in schools.”

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. If you aren't already registered, click here.
If you are registered, click here to log in.
Need help? Email Us.