May 11, 2016
Page A7
O PINION
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Ohio Proves Youth Prison Reform Works Martin
Making the case
for rehabilitation
J ohn K ariaKou
You might not
guess it from the Re-
publican
governor
or GOP-dominated
legislature, but Ohio
is proving itself the
most progressive state in the union
when it comes to youth prison re-
form.
The Buckeye State has shifted
away from punishing kids who
get ensnared in the juvenile justice
system to rehabilitating them, and
it’s saved money doing so.
“What we’ve done in the past
is treat the children who are in-
carcerated like mini adults,” ex-
plained Linda Janes, the deputy
director of Ohio’s Department of
Youth Services. “We know better
now through research and through
by
all kinds of evidence that that’s a
mistake. Children have to be treat-
ed like children.”
That conclusion is good for
youth offenders and good for
society.
Guards in the Ohio juvenile
system are now called “youth
specialists,” and school uni-
forms have replaced prison
khakis. Offenders spend their
days in a school setting and earn
their high school diplomas.
Boys spend their spare time
raising vegetables in greenhous-
es and tilapia in large tanks. The
vegetables are donated to food
banks for the poor, while the boys
use the ish to learn cooking skills.
(No girls are incarcerated in Ohio.
They’re sent to “alternative ven-
ues,” akin to halfway houses.)
The move from punishment to
rehabilitation came as a result of a
2004 lawsuit alleging that guards
in the state’s youth detention cen-
ters used excessive force. The
state also faced accusations that
it was failing to adequately train
staff, educate incarcerated chil-
dren, and provide enough health
services. A federal judge oversaw
the complete revamping of the
state system.
The result is a national model
for youth rehabilitation.
Where 1,800 children were in-
carcerated at the time of the law-
suit, there are now fewer than 500
locked up. Meanwhile, recidi-
vism rates have declined steadily.
This has been a boon for the state,
for reformers, and for Ohio’s tax-
payers.
The research and policy or-
ganization In the Public Interest
estimates that rehabilitation costs
much less than incarceration. In
Ohio, the tab for keeping people
behind bars tops $25,000 per pris-
oner annually.
By contrast, community-based
services for arrested teenagers
cost just $1,000 a year, a bargain
by comparison. So, in addition to
other positive outcomes, the state
can also point now to the $58 mil-
lion it’s saving on youth services.
How did Ohio succeed?
First, it put politics aside and
invited a group of nationally rec-
ognized experts on juvenile prison
reform to offer advice. Meanwhile,
the federal judge who oversaw the
process pushed both sides in the
state legislature to work together
and to keep progress on track.
Second, both former Democrat-
ic Gov. Ted Strickland and his Re-
publican successor John Kasich
invested in community correc-
tions, which is more effective at
targeting at-risk youth. And they
insisted that local authorities keep
the offenders’ families involved in
the process.
The new faces
coming to our
treasury bills
M arian w right e delMan
Every day I wear
a pair of medallions
around my neck with
portraits of two of my
role models: Harriet
Tubman and Sojourner
Truth. As a child I read
books about Harriet Tubman and
the Underground Railroad. She
and the indomitable and eloquent
slave woman Sojourner Truth
represent countless thousands of
anonymous slave women whose
bodies and minds were abused and
whose voices were muted by slav-
ery, Jim Crow, segregation and
conining gender roles throughout
our nation’s history.
Although Harriet Tubman
could not read books, she could
read the stars to ind her way north
to freedom. And she freed not
only herself from slavery, but re-
turned to slave country again and
again through forests and streams
and across mountains to lead other
slaves to freedom at great person-
al danger. She was tough. She was
determined. She was fearless. She
was shrewd and she trusted God
completely to deliver her, and oth-
er leeing slaves, from pursuing
captors who had placed a bounty
on her life.
Now the entire nation will pay
public homage to Harriet Tub-
man’s devotion to freedom, and
by
75,000 in 1939 after the Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution
refused to let her sing at Consti-
tution Hall because she was not
white. Mrs. Roosevelt and Dr.
King will grace the back of the
$5 bill rounding out the inspiring
group of determined moral war-
riors who expanded the civil and
human rights of women, people of
color and all of us.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew
said he had an ‘aha’ moment af-
ter recognizing the groundswell of
For too long and for too
many money has been the
most powerful symbol of
what we value as a nation.
woman in more than a century
and irst African American ever
to be represented on the face of an
American paper note.
And it’s wonderful that she will
not be alone. Sojourner Truth and
women suffragette activists and
leaders will be featured on the
back of the $10 bill. Great con-
tralto and opera singer Marian
Anderson, for whom I was named
and about whom great conductor
Arturo Toscanini said “yours is a
voice such as one hears once in a
hundred years,” will be featured
on the back of the $5 bill. First
Lady Eleanor Roosevelt arranged
for Marian Anderson to perform
at the Lincoln Memorial before
public response to his announce-
ment that the Treasury Depart-
ment was considering changing
the design of the $10 bill. To so
many people these new treasury
bills will be much more than piec-
es of paper.
For too long and for too many
money has been the most power-
ful symbol of what we value as a
nation. Harriet Tubman, Sojourner
Truth, Marian Anderson, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Elizabeth Cady Stan-
ton, Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony,
Lucretia Mott, and Martin Luther
King, Jr. – their faces on American
currency will send powerful mes-
sages about what – and who – we
Americans are, value and strive to
Carpet & Upholstery
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Powerful Symbols of What We Value as a Nation
also honor Sojourner Truth and
other great women and Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr. who never
stopped demanding and working
to assure that America lives up to
its declared creed of freedom, life,
liberty, pursuit of happiness and
equality for all.
Kudos to the Treasury
Department which has an-
nounced that Harriet Tub-
man’s face will grace the
front of the redesigned $20
bill, making her the irst
Cleaning
Service
become. The new bills also will
powerfully remind all Americans
and teach our children and grand-
children that black history and
women’s history are American
history. They will take us a gi-
ant step forward towards healing
our nation’s profoundly crippling
birth defects of slavery, Native
American genocide, and exclusion
of all women and nonpropertied
men of all races from our electoral
process and ensuring full partici-
pation in our nation’s life.
It is so important to make sure
all of our children can see their
ancestors pictured on something
as basic as the money used every
day by countless millions and this
will deepen the meaning of how
we deine success in America.
And to black children who re-
main the poorest group in Amer-
ica, I hope Harriet Tubman and
Sojourner Truth become anchor
reminders of their great heritage of
strength, courage, faith and belief
in the equality of women and peo-
ple of every color. None of us must
ever give up ighting for freedom
and equality and human dignity
however tough the road. I hope all
of our children and all of us will
be inspired anew by our diverse
and rich heritages and cultures as
Americans and renew our deter-
mination to build a level playing
ield in our nation for every child
and help our nation shine a brighter
beacon of hope in a world hunger-
ing for moral example.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children’s De-
fense Fund.
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