How Ohio Went From Investing in Youth Prisons to Investing in Youths’ Futures

In the past two decades, Ohio has slashed its state youth prison pop­u­la­tion by more than 80% while boost­ing pub­lic safe­ty, improv­ing youth out­comes and sav­ing tax­pay­ers tens of mil­lions of dol­lars. A new report from the Juve­nile Jus­tice Coali­tion of Ohio doc­u­ments these suc­cess­es and shares key find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions aimed at help­ing state lead­ers across the coun­try fol­low in Ohio’s footsteps.

“What’s most impres­sive about Ohio is that it has tak­en funds saved from reduc­ing its prison pop­u­la­tion and rein­vest­ed them,” says Nate Balis, the direc­tor of the Casey Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group. ​“It has also pushed coun­ties to employ effec­tive research-informed pro­gram mod­els and invest­ed in care­ful eval­u­a­tion stud­ies to mea­sure results.”

“The ques­tion is not whether states should engage in dein­car­cer­a­tion strate­gies, but how to best imple­ment strate­gies that have been shown to reduce youth incar­cer­a­tion while main­tain­ing pub­lic safety.”

The report, ​“Bring Youth Home: Build­ing on Ohio’s Dein­car­cer­a­tion Lead­er­ship,” spot­lights RECLAIM, an inno­v­a­tive reform launched in 1995 that flipped finan­cial incen­tives to encour­age courts and pro­ba­tion agen­cies to serve kids local­ly in lieu of com­mit­ting them to state youth prisons.

Thank to RECLAIM, Ohio went from lock­ing up 2,500 youth in 1992—1,100 youth above capacity—to lock­ing up less than 500 youth in 2014. Even more, the reform effort worked. Youth placed in RECLAIM pro­grams were far less like­ly to be arrest­ed or incar­cer­at­ed at a lat­er date rel­a­tive to peers ini­tial­ly placed in state youth pris­ons or local cor­rec­tion­al facilities.

“Bring Youth Home” also out­lines three new­er ini­tia­tives root­ed in evi­dence-based non-res­i­den­tial treat­ment pro­grams designed to help Ohio con­tin­ue to reduce its reliance on incarceration.

These three ini­tia­tives are:

1. Behav­ioral Health and Juve­nile Jus­tice Ini­tia­tive (BHJJ). From 2005 to 2014, this ini­tia­tive served more than 2,500 high­er-risk youth with sig­nif­i­cant behav­ioral health and sub­stance use chal­lenges. It has proven to be both a cheap­er and more effec­tive option for keep­ing youth on a path toward suc­cess. Sta­tis­ti­cal­ly speak­ing: Ohio spent $5,000 per BHJJ youth and doc­u­ment­ed just a 2% incar­cer­a­tion rate among par­tic­i­pants who suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the pro­gram. In com­par­i­son, incar­cer­a­tion has cost the state about $167,000 per youth while yield­ing a 19% rein­car­cer­a­tion rate.
2. Tar­get­ed RECLAIM. Launched in six coun­ties in 2009, this ini­tia­tive offers com­mu­ni­ty treat­ment in lieu of incar­cer­a­tion to youth who have been adju­di­cat­ed for felony offens­es. It has helped cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties in these areas cut admis­sions by 68%. Even more, it’s help­ing youth steer clear of incar­cer­a­tion down the road. Youth in Tar­get­ed RECLAIM pro­grams were two times less like­ly to be incar­cer­at­ed — and low-risk youth three times less like­ly to be incar­cer­at­ed — rel­a­tive to peers who had served time in cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties. Based on these suc­cess­es, Ohio has expand­ed the ini­tia­tive statewide.
3. Com­pet­i­tive RECLAIM. This ini­tia­tive, which Ohio rolled out in 2015, cov­ers 24 coun­ties and has a three-pronged focus: 1) diver­sion pro­grams for low-risk youth; 2) inter­ven­tion pro­grams for mod­er­ate- and high-risk youth; and 3) mul­ti-coun­ty col­lab­o­ra­tions to boost in-home treat­ment options in less pop­u­lous counties.

Read the report and learn more

Read about mal­treat­ment of youth in juve­nile cor­rec­tion­al facilities