Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice will close Kewanee facility
Closing the Illinois Youth Center in Kewanee, with its $84,000 per-youth annual operating cost, will help save money and redirect resources toward more effective treatment programs for juvenile offenders.
The Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, or IDJJ, has announced the closure of its Youth Center in Kewanee, Ill. Criminal-justice experts have criticized the facility for its inadequate programming. Despite the center’s serious shortcomings, the state spends over $84,000 per youth annually in operating costs at Kewanee. The facility’s closure thus is a step toward improving rehabilitative options for juvenile offenders – as well as toward making juvenile justice more cost-effective for Illinois taxpayers.
Illinois juvenile facilities, unlike adult prisons, consistently operate below capacity. The average daily population of Illinois’ juvenile facilities has declined steadily since 1999, decreasing 66 percent between 1999 and 2015. The Kewanee facility has a capacity of 354, but was only holding 131 persons as of December 2015, at an annual cost to the state of $84,005 per youth.
According to a report by the nonpartisan John Howard Association, which monitors prisons in Illinois, the Kewanee center has been “a deeply problematic facility that struggles to meet minimum standards of care” and lacks sufficient mental health programming to address the needs of youth offenders. The closure of the facility provides the state the opportunity to redirect some of the Kewanee center’s resources toward improving mental health and drug treatment at other facilities.
In a statement, IDJJ Director Candice Jones said:
“What we know from national research and other states is that youth do best when we work with them in the most appropriate, least-restrictive setting. For misdemeanants and youth with other low-level offenses, that means partnering with proven, effective non-profits to provide resources and work with youth in their communities. It also means that secure custody in state facilities should be reserved for only the highest risk youth who pose a threat to the community. …
“This closure will also allow IDJJ to reinvest a portion of the cost-savings into community-based programming and reduce overall costs to the State.”
Criminal-justice policies should save money where possible, improve public safety, and promote effective rehabilitation for offenders. By making better use of resources to improve programs for juvenile offenders, this move achieves all three.