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| Taft sued over girls prison conditions |
| By Cleveland Plain Dealer |
| Published: 12/27/2004 |
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A children's advocacy group sued the governor of Ohio and other state officials in federal court last Monday, saying they have been "deliberately indifferent" to rampant physical and sexual abuse at Ohio's only juvenile prison for girls. The class-action lawsuit details a half-dozen cases in which inmates at the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility were improperly restrained or mistreated by officers, including a 19-year-old Cleveland native who was choked and tackled by a corrections officer after she tried to stab herself. The prison's policies also allowed male officers to strip search their female charges in violation of their privacy rights, the suit said. The suit accuses the state of violating the girls' civil and human rights, and it asks the court to prevent future confinements at Scioto until changes are made. "The physical, sexual and verbal abuse of girls by guards at the Scioto facility must stop now," said Kim Brooks Tandy, executive director of the Children's Law Center, a Kentucky-based advocacy group that brought the case on the girls' behalf. The lawsuit follows recent indictments against five former officers at the facility, and it comes after Gov. Bob Taft demanded the resignation of the Department of Youth Services' longtime director, Geno Natalucci-Persichetti. Interim Director Tom Stickrath, who officially assumed his new duties last Monday, said he toured the central Ohio facility last week and is confident that it "can be operated in a very safe and humane way." He plans to review all policies, he said, with special emphasis on procedures for restraining unruly inmates. |
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