By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS – Authorities in Southwest Ohio routinely and unconstitutionally arrest and detain children without proper evidence that they committed a crime, according to a federal lawsuit seeking an immediate end to the practice.

Hamilton County Juvenile Court and the county juvenile detention system also process black juveniles at much higher rates than whites, according to the lawsuit, filed late Sunday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati by the Children's Law Center in Covington.

When individuals are detained, the Constitution requires that the state has some evidence against them, said Kim Tandy, the center's executive director. "Without that, whether the person's guilty or not, the process just fundamentally is unfair," she said.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two children arrested this year and last. One, referred to by his initials, S.W., was arrested Sept. 12 for allegedly committing a robbery, despite only vague descriptions of suspects, and acquitted a month later, according to the lawsuit.

Probable cause requires police to provide solid evidence about the source of allegations against the target of an arrest warrant.

A second child, L.D., was arrested last year, when he was 14, on a robbery charge and eventually convicted of a lesser charge. He spent 15 days in detention and six months on house arrest "with no indication that a probable cause determination was made to justify restrictions on his liberty," the lawsuit said.

The Hamilton County administrator declined to comment. Curt Kissinger, Hamilton County Juvenile Court administrator, said the office had just received the lawsuit and was still reviewing it. A message was left for the Hamilton County juvenile detention center.

In 2013, black children were almost 10 times more likely to be arrested than white in Hamilton County, and they were more than twice as likely to be detained, the lawsuit said. It said almost 80 percent of children arrested in Hamilton County last year were black, though only about one in three black children is considered at risk of involvement in the justice system.

More than 6,000 children were arrested last year in Hamilton County, nearly 40 percent of them housed in the county Juvenile Court Youth Center at a cost of $221 a day, according to the Children's Law Center.

Two years ago, the U.S. Justice Department raised similar concerns about court treatment of juveniles in Shelby County in Tennessee, home to Memphis.

Earlier this month, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Toledo Municipal Court had improperly issued arrest warrants without proper evidence for 17 years. ⬛