County juvenile court advisers urged to pursue state recommendations, local community correctional facility

At a meeting of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Advisory Subcommittee, presenters urged the panel to adopt recommendations from the Ohio Juvenile Justice Working Group and to consider creating a local community correctional facility as an alternative to state youth prisons.

The recommendations, presented by Gabriela Celeste of the Shubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University, call for “smaller is better” facilities, statutory changes to reduce mandatory admissions and expanded behavioral-health and reentry services. “Smaller is better. Really smaller is smarter,” Celeste said during her presentation, adding that Cuyahoga Hills is the county facility in the state system and that smaller, locally sited sites can better integrate community treatment and family involvement.

Why it matters: presenters and public commenters said Cuyahoga County accounts for a disproportionate share of the state’s juvenile adjudications and that county youth…