Mansfield Juveniles

to Be Transferred

Gov. John J. Gilligan sent a special investigating team to the Ohio Reformatory at Mansfield after Plain Dealer articles about the terror there.

The articles, published in August, told how young and vulnerable inmates, including juvenile delinquents like Billy P., were the victims of homosexual rape and beatings by tougher inmates.

The assaults have continued.

The juvenile delinquents are to be transferred next April, however, to the new Indian River School in Stark County.

juvenile delinquents with whom they will share the Indian River School.

The transfer will not help those boys under 21 at the reformatory who were sentenced as adults and will not be eligible to go to the new school.

They may be helped when the state opens five new correctional community centers for first offenders.

Cooper, who announced the plan when the investigating team visited the reformatory, said the centers would be established within the year near Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo.

BILLY'S WORLD-Billy P. occupies a cell in this range at the Ohio Reformatory at Mansfield. Inmates call it "the zoo." The world's largest, it houses more than 1,000 men and boys.

Plain Dealer Photo (William A. Ashbolt)

THE TRANET Billy: I'm Scared to Death Here

TRANSFER, which

was ordered by Gilligan, was the result of a solution arrived at by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

The transfer was made possible only because U.S. District Judge William K. Thomas in Cleveland issued a ruling that allowed penal authorities to circumvent Ohio law regarding commitment of youths by juvenile

courts.

Meanwhile, the boys face several months of danger at the reformatory until the new facility is ready for them.

Bennett J. Cooper, statecommissioner of of corrections, acknowledged in an interview that the transfer will be only a partial solution to the problem of safeguarding boys from attacks.

SOME BOYS told report ers that their assailants were not always the adult inmates from whom the transfer is intended to separate them.

Some of their assailants. were the bigger, tougher

From First Page

He could not leave the cell to go to school classes, however, nor could he be taken out to participate in the recreation privileges other inmates enjoy.

And he still was not safe.

At night when the lights were dimmed, voices from nearby cells taunted him, threatened him, importuned him.

IN A RECENT letter to The Plain Dealer, Billy P. wrote: "It seems like the walls are coming together around to squash me to death and I'm scared to death up here.

"I can't help it. This is the first time I've ever had anything like this happen to me and I don't know how to face it.

"I lie up here in my cell listening to the inmates yelling around the blocks what they are going to do to me when they get a hold of me and I'm scared to death 24 hours a day. “Please help me, please.

"I tell you that if I don't get out of this place pretty soon there won't be any need to try and help me because these people are going to drive me insane.”

BILLY P. is prime prey because he looks vulnerable. He is a small, handsome looks vulnerable. He is a small, handsome boy who looks no more than 11 or 12 years old.

Because he is not "streetwise" he does not know the tricks that would help him to out-talk or beat off would-be inmate rapist.

Reformatory gaurds cannot give him total protecton.

Billy P. was attacked on Nov. 21.

A guard had walked with him to the mail room where Billy P. picked up a package left for him by relatives.

THE GUARD walked with Billy P. back to his special protection cell, but left for just a minute to get the key for the cell.

In that minute, a gang of inmates grabbed Billy P. and beat him severely before another group of inmates pulled them away.

matory official telephoned him the other According to Billy P.'s father, a reforday to advise him with a note of urgency and helplessness in his voice: "Get your boy out of here if you can."

The father, a timber buyer and exporter, has asked The Plain Dealer to print all the details of the sexual assaults on his son. HE HAS URGED this newspaper to Print Billy P.'s real name and to publish his photograph.

"I've got to get him out of Mansfield to save his life," the father said. "If people saw his picture and knew his name they might be more likely to believe it's true.

"I know it isn't going to be easy to readjust him when we get him back, but we can't think about that now. We're lucky he's alive."

However, The Plain Dealer decided not to publish the boy's name or his photograph because of possible irreparable damage to him or his family.