The Department of Juvenile Justice is moving forward with plans to close a youth prison. A legislative hearing on the closure is scheduled for tomorrow evening in the community high school.
The Illinois Youth Center in Kewanee is about 150 miles southwest of Chicago. For a juvenile prison, it's big, 11 buildings on 100 acres of land, with room for 350 kids. Dept. of Juvenile Justice Director Candice Jones says the closure helps the agency move toward national best practices, which favor smaller, regional facilities.
"Regionally we don't have the number of youth coming from those surrounding communities to make sense to keep a facility that large open. More than 50% of the youth in our system come from Cook and the surrounding counties. And so really making as many programmatically strong beds available near here is what makes sense, long-term."
Jones says the department has struggled to deliver programs at Kewanee; it's been tough to hire professional staff like licensed mental health providers.
But before it can shut it down, lawmakers get to weigh in. They're expected to hear from criminal justice experts and affected workers.
