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Voices proudly supports Ohio HB 235

Thanks to Rep. Tracy Heard and fellow legislative sponsors, on June 2009, HB 235 was introduced in the House by Representatives Heard, Domenick, Foley, Murray, Harris, Hagan, Williams, S., Newcomb, Boyd and Letson. The intent of the proposed legislation is to restore judicial discretion to Ohio’s juvenile justice system, allowing juvenile courts to once again, provide individualized justice and intervention in delinquency cases. Recognizing that kids are different from adults, the juvenile court system was founded to focus on treatment, supervision and control rather than punishment.

HB 235 proposes to:

Eliminate mandatory transfer to adult court (“bindover”). Currently youth are required to be transferred to the jurisdiction of adult court for certain serious offenses and/or a prior offense record. Mandatory transfers do not allow the juvenile judge to make an individualized judgment about the child’s potential to be rehabilitated. Also, research has shown that youth transferred to the adult system have a higher recidivism rate than those remaining in the juvenile system for similar offenses.

Eliminate mandatory SYO (Serious Youth Offender) dispositions. SYO dispositions allow the juvenile court to blend a juvenile disposition with an adult sentence for serious offenses. However, some offenses, combined with past record, mandate an SYO disposition. This does not allow the judge to make an individualized judgment.

Raise the age of eligibility for an SYO disposition from 10 to 14. Children aged 10 to 13 have between 8 and 11 years to be treated and rehabilitated within the juvenile system. To believe that children this young cannot be rehabilitated speaks not to the children’s amenability to treatment, but to the dysfunction of the system they are in.

Make only felony offenses of violence eligible for bindover and SYO. Bindover and SYO should only apply to violent youthful offenders, not property offenders.

Eliminate mandatory gun specifications (one to three years added time for offenses committed with a gun). Gun specs do not promote the rehabilitation of juveniles in Ohio, but do add to the record-high levels of disproportionate minority confinement in DYS facilities. Additionally, gun specs are modeled directly after the adult criminal system and are, in essence, an adult sanction that is leveled on children adjudicated, without full due process protections, in the juvenile court system.

Allow the juvenile court to release a child who is serving time for a specification. Currently this “specification” time for gang related offenses or guns are a mandated period of time. Allowing the court to release a child early will promote positive behavior in the institution, while reducing the amount of time that a youth stays beyond when he/she has gained maximum benefit.

Allow both the juvenile court and DYS to release a child after the expiration of the child’s minimum term. Currently the court can only release a youth up until the expiration of the youth’s minimum sentence. This policy would increase the court’s involvement with that youth.

Voices for Ohio’s Children’s Juvenile Justice Initiative (JJI) is a broad-based group of individuals and organizations that seek to grow an informed, collective, community voice to advocate for the transformation of Ohio’s juvenile justice system. In 2008, the Voices for Ohio's Children Juvenile Justice Initiative (JJI) crafted a list of legislative recommendations that would focus on areas of transformation in the juvenile justice system in Ohio. These recommendations became known as the juvenile justice omnibus bill in which prioritized language to decrease the reliance on institutionalization and increasing the involvement of families in the system. These recommendations were designed to support correctional reform efforts in Ohio and address the negative effects of the ‘adultification” of the juvenile justice system that has occurred over the past 15 years.

After many months of coalition building, research, background information and data collection the JJI members presented the recommendations to Representative Tracy Maxwell Heard (D), Franklin County as a champion on behalf of youth and young adult issues. Rep. Heard worked tirelessly with juvenile justice stakeholders, fellow lawmakers and community representatives to vet out a final bill to be submitted before the Ohio General Assembly. The youth advocate lawmaker has a remarkable track record for voting on behalf of children issues.

Voices and its partners are excited to support and advance HB 235. The work of this initiative is done by its partners and in collaboration with other initiatives, with Voices providing the leadership and staffing needed to coordinate and mobilize a collective voice to promote policy change. To join this initiative, please contact Voices for Ohio’s Children at 216-881-7860 , or email Yvonne C. Hunnicutt at yhunnicutt@vfc-oh.org.