Cook County’s Juvenile Detention Center Improves Following ACLU Lawsuit Demands

Deborah Bayliss | As of Thursday, May 21, 2015

Cook County government finally met the demands of a 1999, class action lawsuit, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois filed on behalf of children being detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC), demanding safer living conditions. The lawsuit also called for a remedy to the systematic mistreatment of young people--some as young as 13-- who were charged with delinquency or facing criminal counts in adult court.

The Chicago Citizen Newspaper spoke with Ed Yonka, Dir. of Communications and Public Policy at the ACLU Illinois, on Friday regarding the court case.

“After initially filing the lawsuit in 1999 (when the late John H. Stroger, Jr. was County President) we came to an agreement with the County but they didn’t carry out any of the things we asked them to do,” Yonka said. “So in 2007 we went to court and asked that a transitional administrator be appointed and Mr. Earl Dunlap was appointed. Upon his appointment he literally had to send an employee out to buy underwear for the children so they could have a change. He’s done a tremendous job at making changes and today we have an agreed order handing the facility back over to Cook County. It was a long hard road but is today a success story and a demonstration what can happen when the courts get involved.”

Filed in U.S. District Court, the 1999 lawsuit sought to correct what was described as dreadful and barbarous conditions at the temporary detention center.

Yohnka said things were so bad at the Detention Center, that staff would put detainees in a room to fight out their differences.

Children also were reportedly physically and verbally abused by guards, locked in their rooms for days, often for violating petty rules, and forced to live in overcrowded areas infested with rats and cockroaches.

Described as overcrowded and understaffed, according to a 1998 John Howard Association report, the Juvenile Detention Center population at one point rose to 800 in a complex designed to hold fewer than 500 people.

Other conditions described in the lawsuit point out:

• Children being attacked by other detainees

• Inadequate food that staff sometimes took for themselves

• Lack of educational and medical services

• Children routinely subjected to punishment and locked in their rooms alone for up to five days

• Unsanitary, squalid conditions, rodents, cockroaches and other pests.

Bobbie L. Steele served as interim Cook County Board President from Aug. 2006 to Dec. 2006, until Todd H. Stroger was elected and served until 2010.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, elected in 2010, announced the federal court's ruling that the County has reached substantial compliance involving conditions at JTDC, and that control of the facility is expected to be transferred to the Chief Judge of Cook County Timothy Evans, effective May 20. Leonard Dixon was appointed superintendent to run the facility under Judge Evans.

"All of the projects had been stalled before I took office, and I made it a priority to move them forward," Preckwinkle said. "With these improvements, those youth who are assigned to the JTDC will be able to live, learn and receive the supports they need in more appropriate settings. We've invested a lot in this facility, including installation of a secure video system, a tracking system for employee movement and wellness checks on youth.

Preckwinkle, who referred to the conditions at the Detention Center as "unconscionable," also spoke specifically about housing and medical improvements planned for the facility.

"Additionally, we have established rooms in each housing unit for young people to have private medical and mental health consultations, and improvements to facilities for suicide prevention. Many of these improvements will pay for themselves by protecting young people and employees and making us eligible for state reimbursements for certain expenses," Preckwinkle added.

By agreement of the parties, transitional administrator, Dunlap will monitor the facility for the next 90 days and the case will then be dismissed unless good cause is shown to continue monitoring.

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