Butler County jail officials say they are temporarily suspending visitation in child dependency cases with incarcerated individuals while they “rework some parameters” regarding the policy.

Warden Joe DeMore said the Butler County Prison is working with the county Children and Youth Services to “evaluate some security concerns” regarding visitation with inmates and children involved with CYS.

He said those visits have been temporarily suspended while authorities are working on “tightening down parameters around approving and disapproving visits.”

This type of visitation began at the jail facility in January 2017, and is a “privilege at this point,” DeMore said.

Charley Johns, director of CYS, said “our jail visit program is currently paused just to evaluate the policies and procedures and determine how we are going to move forward with that.”

He said the CYS office will be working closely with jail officials and service providing partners to “look at the entire process and make sure we have thought of all the variables.”

“The policy is just going to be much more in depth,” he said.

Johns said the visitation process normally proceeds with a CYS case worker making a referral to service providers, who then evaluate each case with jail personnel on when and how often visits can occur with incarcerated individuals.

DeMore said no timeline for the change has been determined, and the visitation will remain suspended pending the policy changes.

The attorney for a woman who was planning on suing the county, as well as the Butler County Prison, Demore and Butler County employee Justin Baptiste following the denial of visitation, said the timing of this decision is “rather striking.”

“I would hate to think that this decision would be some form of retribution or indirect response,” said J. Lansing Hills, who filed the writ of summons on behalf of Kasey Dischman, 30, of Butler, informing the county and the jail of the intended court action. “But as a thinking person I can only say the timing seems to be a bit odd. I hoped it wouldn't be something so petty.”

That lawsuit was later withdrawn because Dischman, who was charged with endangering not only her unborn child after allegedly overdosing while seven months pregnant but also her 8-year-old daughter, was released from the facility into pretrial supervision pending further court proceedings, making the legal action a moot point.

“She was allowed court appointed visits with the children on a monthly basis in the jail,” Hills previously said. The allegations were that while she was allowed two of these visits, after the felony aggravated assault of an unborn child charge was dismissed by Judge William Shaffer, the “jail would no longer be providing visitation with the children,” Hills said.

“This was an attempt to compel the jail to follow an already established court order that my client receive visitation, which is a rather common occurrence at the Butler County Prison,” he said Friday. “The jail was refusing to follow that court order in denying those visits.”

After being released, the lawsuit was withdrawn and in “rather short order” Hills said other clients began informing him that this type of visitation was now temporarily suspended.

He said those adversely affected by the temporary suspension are the children, who “no longer have the opportunity to continue having in-person contact with parents.”

“I find it to be unfortunate,” he said. “It seems like this would be a major stumbling block to the ultimate goal of reunification with family.”

When asked, DeMore declined to speak about specific reasons for the temporary suspension and policy review, and declined to go into specifics on what prison authorities are looking to change.

Johns also declined to comment on why the policy is being reviewed.