Kids come first at Cook County junvenile center

It is no secret that the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center has issues. The more than 400 children under 16 sentenced to the facility deal with poor staffing and a bleak environment every day.

After months of arguing, county officials put down their boxing gloves Wednesday to discuss how to improve center facilities --making the kids the priority.

"We have to stop fighting--we are only fighting ourselves," County Commissioner Joseph Moreno said.

The current crisis surrounding the juvenile detention center was discussed at a public hearing held by the criminal justice committee of the Board of Commissioners.

Earl Dunlap, temporary administrator of the center, Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans and teen activists described a multitude of problems at the juvenile facility.

How to fix those problems remains unclear.

"It's not that we don't have enough resources, it's about how you use them," Dunlap said. "We are focused on doing things the right way instead of the quick way."

Commissioners questioned why there were still 175 vacant staffing positions at the center. Dunlap said the hiring process has been stepped up, and he noted that "we are not just pop more warm bodies into the center." He said many current positions are filled by uncaring employees who often do not come to work and do not do their jobs when they are there.

Dunlap said up to 17 new counselors will be hired within the next 60 days and training began earlier this week for temporary workers who will be assigned to security posts.

The rising number of children in the center was another issue of concern.

"These are our children, they live in our county and we don't need to be locking all these children up," Evans said.

Evans suggested directing more funding into alternative programs for juvenile offenders. Only 23 percent of the center's population is detained for violent crimes, which has Dunlap and others questioning what some of the children are doing in there in the first place.

To catch children before they enter the system, the criminal justice committee formed the Community Advisory Committee for the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Leaders of all areas of expertise and youth advocates make up the committee.

The advisory committee presented current initiatives designed for the detention center to address weakness in services provided in the areas of education, health services and technology.

"Bottom line is, it's going to take all of us working together to establish a culture of caring in an environment where it never before existed," Dunlap said.