Tuesday, April 20, 1999
New leader raises standards
Background checks, wages increased
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — It was New Year's Eve, and Warren County Juvenile Judge Mark Clark had just received news that would get 1999 off to a bad start.
Three of his corrections officers were accused of sexual misconduct with girls being held at the county's juvenile detention center complex. An investigation was under way.
Two of the guards — Timothy Million Jr. and Charles “Eddie” Heiber — eventually would be arrested. Jay Hurd, a third officer, was fired April 12 for allegedly groping an inmate. Prosecutors said he likely will not be charged criminally because there is not enough evidence.
The judge needed help to salvage his staff and the county's juvenile corrections system. He turned to his longtime friend Ron Lewis, a retired state trooper who headed the assault team during the 1993 Lucasville pris on uprising. “He's probably the most expert person to be able to do this in the state of Ohio. He just happened to be a friend of mine,” Judge Clark said.
Warren County Sheriff Tom Ariss, who once worked for Mr. Lewis as a trooper, agrees his 56-year-old former boss is the person for the job.
“He knows what has to be done and knows what it takes. To Ron, what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. If you give him a job to do, define it and get out of the way. It's going to get done,” Sheriff Ariss said.
Mr. Lewis became Judge Clark's administrative assistant in mid-January.
Within a month, he had successfully lobbied county commissioners for nearly $55,000 for additional training and a boost in starting pay for corrections officers — from less than $8 an hour to $11.50. For each of the next three years, corrections officers will receive $1-an-hour raises.
“You just can't pay that kind of money and not expect to have some problems. But we didn't have many problems like this before,” said Judge Clark, who blamed the recent improprieties on pay, turnover and a need for more security.
Mr. Lewis ran criminal background checks and fin gerprint analysis on all officers. He also rewrote hiring standards to include broader background checks, a year's probationary period and required completion of a three-week college course on basic corrections.
He put the guards in uniform and made arrangements for a $50,000 security camera system to be installed inside the complex.
“We are doing everything we can do here to minimize any chance of anything ever happening again,” Mr. Lewis said. “But there's no perfect system.”
The judge agreed: “We're not going to say it ain't going to happen again,” he told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Before 1999, job candidates had to pass a criminal background check of county records and a drug screen. The limited background check allowed Mr. Million to be hired even though he had a felony record.
The latest hiring practice employs national law enforcement databases, fingerprint comparisons by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, a drug screen, a psychological evaluation and a voice stress analysis, similar to a lie detector test.
“My goal is to make this the best in the state when we get done,” Mr. Lewis said.
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