Corrections_Today_Summer_2025_Vol.87_No.2

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(he was assistant director of DRC at the time) and reflected “nothing has left a more profound and lasting than the Lucasville riot” (p. 58). He reminds readers that privatization in corrections is big business, particularly in services: transportation, medical care, money transfers, phone and email, etc. He made an interesting observation: the first thing a warden of a state prison does in the morning is to focus on incident reports from the previous day; however, in one case the first thing a warden of a private prison did, he noticed, was to review a budget sheet on expenses. Ohio is a capital punishment state and Stickrath informs of the multiple direct phone lines to the governor, chief justice, attorney general, etc. that needed to be in place on execution day in case of last-minute legal issues dealing with a reprieve for the condemned. Meeting challenges Mr. Stickrath’s first cabinet position was at the Department of Youth Services (appointed in 2005 by Governor Taft), where he served a little over five years. Coming from the adult system, he experienced a high learning curve, as juvenile judges, parents and advocates are heavily involved. He wrote: “I would frequently comment that a youth we were returning to the community would be the most stable member of his or her family” (p. 137). There was a culture of violence and aggression at one of the juvenile facilities, the Ohio River Valley Facility (ORV), at the time and Director Stickrath set about

reforming the system but being conscious not to “adultify” it. Through internal discipline and some prosecution, this culture subsided. He collaborated with the University of Cincinnati in developing an ingenious evidence based actuarial tool to identify high, moderate and low-risk youths. With this assessment, moderate and low risk youths were more appropriately placed in the community and more high-risk ones remained at the facilities. Using this approach, Director Stickrath closed three juvenile facilities. However, these were not easy decisions to make, as they adversely impacted on the local communities where the facilities were located. Reflecting on his tenure at the DYS: “In some ways, I felt more able to take ‘political’ risks working with the juvenile system as compared with the adult correction systems. Legislators and other stakeholders were generally more forgiving when it came to juveniles, and it gave me a sense of freedom to be creative and try new things” (p. 74). In 2011, then Attorney General Mike DeWine appointed Mr. Stickrath Superintendent of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification, where he served for 8 years. Mr. DeWine campaigned on improving crime lab processing efficiency. Stickrath opined: “I was out of my comfort zone. I’m not a cop; I’m not a prosecutor; I am not a scientist. I am an old prison warden” (p. 83). However, sometimes it takes fresh eyes and a good manager to re-energize an agency. He improved the turnaround time it took to analyze evidence and

submit it to Law Enforcement for prosecution. He also considerably improved the transparency of the agency and collaborated with Bowling Green State University in Forensics research. He chronicled several fascinating crime scene cases, such as solving a murder case by analyzing the DNA on the inside of a toilet paper roll, or the Pike County massacre where eight murders were committed over a paternity issue. He added, “I could write a book focused only on the interesting cases at BCI…” (p. 93). His daughter believes his BCI job was the “ coolest” job he has had. I venture to guess he believes that, too. View from the top Mr. Stickrath led the Department of Public Safety on three different occasions under different governors. On the last occasion, under Governor Mike DeWine, he said, “I conveniently nominated myself for DPS” (p. 110), as his previous stints were short periods and he wanted to make a greater difference. He was particularly interested in improving the relationship between the Ohio State Highway Patrol (which is under DPS) and the Sheriff Departments over jurisdictional and other disputes. A culture of cooperation needed to develop. It was a particularly busy period for DPS during this tenure due to managing the pandemic. Ohio became the first state in the nation to close schools, bars, restaurants, etc. DPS was particularly busy, also, due to the protests over George Floyd’s murder. Director Stickrath writes: “We needed a scorecard to

Summer 2025 | Corrections Today

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