Cuyahoga County subcommittee hears focus‑group findings: youth report trauma, distrust and lack of supports

At a meeting of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Courts Subcommittee on programmatic thrust, presenters from the Greater Cleveland Youth Justice Collective told members that youth who participated in nine focus groups described deep grief, a sense of being targeted and limited access to safe recreational and mental‑health supports.

The presenters — Gabriela Celeste of the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University, Jocelyn Rosnick, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, and Pat Slater, a policy strategist at the ACLU of Ohio — summarized findings from 61 participants and said the project was funded by a George Gund Foundation grant.

The group framed the work as a response to what they called "misguided media hype" about youth crime and urged policymakers to consider context. "Kids make up about 4% of all arrests in the city of Cleveland," Celeste said, adding that youth accounted for roughly 3% of violent‑offense arrests in the data the presenters cited. Presenters said those Cleveland Division of Police figures were used only to provide context for Greater Cleveland.

Why it matters: presenters said the focus groups highlight why county investment…