County approves juvenile jail agreement
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Daily Southtown
By Jonathan Lipman, Staff Writer
May 17, 2006
Cook County's juvenile jail will get increased monitoring
but no change in leadership under an agreement approved Tuesday
by the county board.
Commissioners voted 9 to 3 in favor of the agreement, which
still needs final approval by a judge.
Dissenters said the agreement had no muscle and was therefore
pointless.
Studies have shown repeated problems with violence against children
and hiring of unqualified employees at the facility.
The American Civil Liberties Union has an ongoing lawsuit against
the county over conditions at the facility and pressed for the
new agreement as news reports last year showed the county was
not meeting terms of a previous settlement.
The new agreement calls for appointment of a new "compliance
administrator" who will have no direct authority but who
can make suggestions to facility superintendent Jerry Robinson.
If the suggestions aren't acted upon, the administrator can
call for mediation and can bring the issue to court after 15
days. The county has six months to comply with all elements
of the previous settlement.
Commissioner Forrest Claypool — who made conditions at
the facility a major part of his unsuccessful bid for the county
board presidency — blasted the new agreement as a "rehash
of the old settlement."
"The judge in this case, it was pretty clear, had no desire
to get his hands dirty," said Claypool (D-Chicago), who
voted no, along with Commissioner Mike Quigley (D-Chicago) and,
in a rare dissension from the administration, Commissioner Joan
Murphy (D-Crestwood).
"We're just spending money, and I don't believe we can
accomplish anything," Murphy said. "I think there
are problems there; I don't think there are any more or any
less than any other institution of that nature."
"I think there need to be changes made," said Murphy,
who has previously supported management at the facility. "If
it's the managers, and they're the problem, get them out of
there."
Commissioner Jerry Butler (D-Chicago), who voted in favor of
the agreement, also said he doubted it would do much good.
"Unless the monitors are going to live over there, they
aren't going to change a thing," Butler said. "You
can't come in on one day and expect change."
Chief of staff James Whigham, who has been running Cook County
since President John Stroger suffered a stroke in March, denied
there are systemic problems at the facility, despite findings
of abuse and poor management in the county's own commissioned
study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
"You have some ... headlines that have no basis of being
proven," Whigham said. "What we have is some technical
violations that needed to be corrected."
